10 Recent Horror TV Shows That Had No Right To Be This Good

Another Mike Flanagan creation, The Fall of the House of Usher is an ambitious, generation-spanning tale of consequences, familial plight, and the condemnation of excess, concentrated wealth. Its late 2023 release was marked with much fanfare, with critics and audiences praising the cast, production values, tone and narrative complexity.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's work, the series follows the titular family as it collapses under the weight of the choices its patriarch (Bruce Greenwood) and his sister (Mary McDonnell) made following their deal with an enigmatic woman known as Verna (Carla Gugino) in the early 1980s. 

All this comes to a head after the patriarch, Roderick (now a Big Pharma CEO), loses all his children within a six week timeframe and is forced to reveal his secrets to C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), an attorney who is investigating the Usher-run company.

Unsurprisingly for a Mike Flanagan production, the show is well-crafted and well-performed (especially by Gugino, Greenwood and Mark Hamill) but its narrative is where it shines despite the odds. Sure, it is far removed from the source material and is narratively ambitious, but these factors did not stop the series from telling a twisted and captivating critique of welath-driven hubris.