Is Fall of the House Usher connected to Haunting of Hill House?

Mike Flanagan is no stranger to adapting horror stories into sping-tingling series with The Fall of the House of Usher his latest for Netflix. But it leaves some questions on whether The Fall of the House of Usher is connected to The Haunting of Hill House.

Some of his best-known movies include Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald’s Game, and Doctor Sleep. But Flanagan has also dazzled with his Netflix supernatural horror anthology series The Haunting. Both The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor were based on well-known horror stories.

But for The Fall of the House of Usher, Flannigan took inspiration from the well-renowned gothic writer Edgar Allen Poe and his work of the same name. Seeing as the new Netflix series is based on a written work, wouldn’t it be a part of the anthology series?

Flanagan himself gave fans the answer on whether they need to brush up on The Haunting of Hill House before diving into The Fall of the House of Usher.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a treat for Edgar Allen Poe fans

The final verdict is no, The Fall of the House of Usher has no connection to Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House or his anthology series.

Based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel, Haunting of Hill House focuses on five adults and the continuing effects of the paranormal occurrences they faced in the Hill House. The Netflix series alternates between their present timeline and what occurred leading up to the events in 1992. The Haunting of Bly Manor was based on the 1898 horror novella by Henry James. The storyline takes place in England’s countryside as an au pair is unaware the house she was hired to work in is haunted.

Where does The Fall of the House of Usher fit in? It doesn’t. Despite the title also having “house” in the title, the Netflix series is a standalone from Flanagan’s anthology series.

In an interview with TheWrap, “So for it be a ‘Haunting,’ it says that it’s about ghosts, right? And Poe wasn’t really about ghosts. And ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ specifically, is not about ghosts. So the biggest thing is that there just isn’t really a haunting.”

His answer is justified as Poe’s style of stories isn’t necessarily paranormal and focuses more on the macabre. Flannigan also explained that the idea from the get-go was for The Fall of the House of Usher to be a standalone. The series is about the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that has succeeded in wealth and fame. But his past has led all his children to die gruesome deaths at the hands of a mysterious woman.

You can read more Netflix content in our hub here, Dexerto’s review here, and more.