For many horror fans like myself, filmmaker Mike Flanagan is a magnet for attention, as each of his projects succeeds in various ways that other projects fail. With Midnight Mass a fixture on Netflix's Top 10 since its release, and with The Haunting of Hill House cemented as one of the best horror TV shows of any generation, the streaming service has revealed it's teaming with Flanagan for another classic novel adaptation, this time from Edgar Allen Poe.
For his next Netflix series, Mike Flanagan is creating an episodic take on Edgar Allen Poe's much-celebrated short story The Fall of the House of Usher. This creative teaming, so to speak, sounds like a dream come true, after seeing how well he and his creative team handled Shirly Jackson's Hill House and Henry James' lore for The Haunting of Bly Manor. Of course, we hope it's a little nightmarish as well.
Netflix revealed the news today on Twitter, which you can check out below!
Mike Flanagan has more scares headed to Netflix!Joining The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and his upcoming adaptation of The Midnight Club, is The Fall of the House of Usher — a new limited series based on multiple works from Edgar Allan Poe pic.twitter.com/m3y3FV1gmZOctober 6, 2021
With three Netflix series already under his belt, Mike Flanagan is next set to deliver The Midnight Club, an adaptation of bestselling YA horror novelist Christopher Pike's book of the same name. That project will also incorporate other Pike novels and tales into its storytelling narrative, in a relatively similar way to how The Haunting of Bly Manor fused various plot devices and thematic approaches from Henry James bibliography. So it's awesome to learn he's going that same route with The Fall of the House of Usher, considering Edgar Allen Poe is a neverending source of unsettling, moralistic horror.
Interestingly enough, The Fall of the House of Usher will be a standalone horror series that won't be a fixture of the Haunting franchise, though I wouldn't make any assumptions about a lack of connective tissue, since Mike Flanagan is known for dropping references to both his own work and those of others. And similar to Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story stable of familiars, Flanagan has built up his own group of cast and crew members who faithfully return when new projects come about. That includes his wife Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas, Carla Gugino, Annabeth Gish, and more.
While this earliest report doesn't indicate exactly what other Edgar Allen Poe works Mike Flanagan and producing partner Trevor Macy are bringing out, we do know that the limited series will take place across eight episodes. The creator will be behind the camera as director for half of them, with the other four set to be helmed by Michael Fimognari, who has served as Flanagan's cinematographer for Midnight Mass, Hill House, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Before I Wake, Oculus, Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game. Interestingly enough, Fimognari's two director credits are for Netflix's two To All the Boys sequels.
While waiting to hear more about this new project, be sure to peep out all seven fear-confronting episodes of Midnight Mass on Netflix now, and stay up to date with everything coming in the next few months with our 2021 Fall TV schedule.
