(Mild spoilers for Netflix’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher will be found below.)
Mike Flanagan will return to his most-frightening form with his next Netflix limited series, The Fall Of The House Of Usher. The streaming horror maestro loves to cast returning actors in new series, and Carla Gugino might be no exception to that rule, but she is exceptional. Here, she stars as the most terrifying aspect of this series that is inspired by (although very different from) one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most beloved short stories. Yet her character does not actually appear in the 1839 source material. Who is Verna?
Let’s start with an easter egg: Verna is an unusual name, for sure, but upon closer inspection, it is an anagram for “raven,” and even a casual Poe fan can appreciate that association. Additionally, her character glides through several scenarios that can be linked to various Poe works. To stay relatively spoiler free here, however, it’s safest to begin with Netflix’s summation that “Gugino portrays a shape-shifter named Verna, whose origins can be traced back to a — let’s just say — very famous Poe character.”
The central siblings of this story — Roderick and Madeline Usher — first encounter Verna decades ago on a pivotal New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, they also helm a pharmaceutical company that manufactures and proliferates addictive opioid-based painkillers. Fast forward to the present, and Roderick’s many children begin to meet graphic and brutal deaths that are more than suspicious.
Gugino also portrays the “manifestation” of “consequence” and the “executor in karma” with some supernatural elements tossed into the fray. The actress described this series as “batsh*t crazy in the best possible way.” That’s an accurate statement, and Flanagan fans shall not be disappointed.
Additionally, the Usher dynasty will likely remind you of Succession‘s Roy family but without the artful “f*ck offs” and with a corrupt pharmaceutical giant standing in for a right-wing news network. Here’s the show’s synopsis:
From Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, a wicked horror series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege, and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth.
The Fall Of The House Of Usher descends upon Netflix on October 12.
