Inside the harrowing story Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher is based on

Mike Flanagan has returned to with his final show for Netflix, and The Fall of the House of Usher is set to bring the usual October spooks to the table in the high quality fashion we’re used to from horror’s 21st century auteur. The Fall of the House of Usher follows The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Midnight Club to all be Flanagan series based off source material and stories. The only one that wasn’t was Midnight Mass – a show based on the fictional book by the lead character writer in Flanagan’s horror film Hush. The Fall of the House of Usher is an adaptation of a classic Edgar Allen Poe story, but what’s the original story the show’s based off all about? Here’s what you need to know.

It’s weird af

The original Edgar Allen Poe tale is a short story also called The Fall of the House of Usher, so the Netflix show takes the original title. The plot follows an unnamed narrator who’s a childhood friend of Roderick Usher – who’s reached out to his old pal via a letter declaring that he’s seriously ill and needs help. When the narrator gets to the House of Usher, he sees a big crack going down the middle of the house into the lake. It’s also revealed that Roderick’s sister Madeline is gravely ill and keeps falling into deathlike trances.

As they walk around the house and the narrator admires Roderick’s paintings, Roderick tells the narrator he thinks the house is alive – like, a sentient being. Roderick believes that if the house falls and crumbles then so will he.

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Roderick then tells the narrator that Madeline has died. He’s worried that doctors are going to want her body, so tells the narrator they should keep her in the family tomb in the house until they properly bury her. When they put her in the tomb, the narrator clocks Roderick and Madeline are twins and she has rosy cheeks. So far, so spooky.

Via Netflix

The narrator’s room is above the family tomb, and over the coming days both he and Roderick become increasingly agitated. One night, during a storm, Roderick comes in very distressed. Roderick says the lake around the House of Usher is glowing supernaturally with no explanation – a thing that he’d portrayed in the paintings the narrator admired earlier.

The narrator reads to Roderick to chill him out a bit, but to no avail. The house starts brimming with cracking and refracting noise. Roderick confesses he’s been hearing it for days coming from the family tomb – Madeline was not dead when they buried her there. Madeline then bursts in, bloodied up and attacks Roderick who dies from fight (very real) and then she also perishes.

The narrator flees the house, and as he looks back he sees the House of Usher split into two and sink and fall into the lake.

Have you binged all of Mike Flanagan’s Netflix adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher yet – if so, you can tell me how closely he sticks to the original story. My weekend is SORTED.

The Fall of the House of Usher by Mike Flanagan – adapting the original story by Edgar Allen Poe – is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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Featured image via Netflix.