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Showing posts from October, 2023

The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

The Fall of the House of Usher is a Mike Flanagan horror, in the tradition of Hill House , Bly House and so on. As you might guess from the title it’s inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. If you’re the right sort of nerd you can have fun spotting the references to Poe works, some are huge and smack you in the face, some are smaller or come from his life rather than his writing. I’ve seen reviews that absolutely hate this, or say they make the story incoherent. Personally I found them delightful and well judged. I'm pretty sure I missed some of them but the big, obvious references are held for the right moments - there’s an episode called The Pit and the Pendulum , and the pendulum does its job in a satisfying way. But the smaller moments, the ones that would be spoilers, if I missed them they’re not presented in neon lights and jerking the story out of shape, but if you do catch them, they add an extra little layer of pleasure in the way that all the best easter eggs do. If