What is The Fall of the House Usher about? Netflix series explained

Netflix’s chilling Edgar Allen Poe-inspired horror series The Fall of the House of Usher promises a thrill ride of death, hidden pasts, and facing the inevitable. And no, it has nothing to do with Usher the singer – here’s what it’s actually about.

Mike Flanagan is well-known for his horror creations for Netflix. He gained a fanbase with series like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the infamous The Haunting of Hill House. But this new Netflix series takes on a unique spin, inspired by the gothic writer himself, Edgar Allen Poe.

The reviews for The Fall of the House of Usher have already piqued fans’ interest with promises of jump-scares, gnarly horror, and a dark tale of a hidden secret.

Before jumping into the eight-episode season set to release on October 12, here’s a breakdown of its plot and what can be expected.

The Fall of the House of Usher has a family facing inevitable death

Edgar Allen Poe’s stories come to life in Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher. The CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company faces the dark truth of his past and his grand success and fortune.

The series focuses on Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) as he tells the true story of how all his children suddenly faced gruesome deaths one after the other. While the police found no foul play, only Roderick and his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonell) know the truth.

Roderick and his sister are the owners of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. A company that has been built as the pillar of wealth and fortune, a fortune Roderick’s children relish in. But Fortunato is also in the middle of scrutiny over its medical practices. As well as its ability to evade criminal cases against them.

The fame comes to a roaring halt when each of Roderick’s children ends up dead for a seemingly simple reason why – but Roderick knows better. The Fall of the House of Usher takes audiences into a dark and tangled web of mystery behind the truth about Fortunato and the Ushers. Lurking in the shadows is a woman tied to it all.

The Fall of the House of Usher takes well-known details from Poe’s work of the same name to tell a chilling story. Fans may want to watch out for a few Easter eggs. The original work was published in 1839 and focused on madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

You can read more Netflix content here, Dexerto’s review of The Fall of the House of Usher here.