Quebec does not produce horror television series, with the exception of frightening sequences from If we loved each other where the carpenter Julien is having “a manicure for his toenails”.
Images more terrifying than any American blockbuster dripping with crushed brains and rotten viscera juice.
However, as soon as the leaves turn red, the nights cool and the inflatable ghosts of Costco purr on every lawn, we are all looking for a series of horrors to devour with a bowl full of mini Kit Kats and Aero.
Failing to review Patrick Senécal presentson Videotron’s Club illico, Netflix launches Thursday The Fall of House Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher), a gloomy work by specialist Mike Flanagan, who also made the successful series The Haunting of Bly Manor (meh!) and The Haunting of Hill House (frankly better!).
Divided into eight one-hour segments, The Fall of House Usher revisits the work of American novelist Edgar Allan Poe in an inventive, modern and chilling way. Think of a series alloy Succession And Painkillerbut coated in morbid hallucinations and gruesome murders.
Because yes, it’s a hyper-popular subject, this macabre series recounts the descent into hell of the Usher family, who raked in billions of dollars by marketing a powerful pain medication similar to OxyContin. Imagine Painkiller And Dopesickbut transposed into a fantastical-gothic universe.
And Succession, in there? I arrive there. This nightmarish story revolves around the patriarch Roderick Usher, big boss of the influential pharmaceutical company Fortunato, who had six children with five women. As in Successionthe six Usher children, all adults, fight fiercely for the affection – and the mountain of money – of their cruel father, now in a relationship with a strange young woman called Juno.
From the first episode, the biggest punch comes out: the six heirs of Roderick Usher have perished in atrocious circumstances. Through flashbacks and long confessions drowned in very expensive cognac, Roderick Usher tells a federal government investigator, who has been trying to pin him down for several decades, how he lost his six children, all of them more detestable. each other.
This is probably the most eye-catching element of this Netflix miniseries: each episode culminates with the violent death of one of the children of the Usher dynasty. But in what way and why? Here’s the catch.
Yes, this process gets repetitive, but it works really well. Too good, even. The Usher children are so self-centered, stupid, spoiled, tweets and unbearable that we (almost) can’t wait to see them suffer before our eyes, in the purest tradition of film gore. Note to self: don’t adopt a black cat, never go near monkeys in a zoo, and always check under the pillow before falling into Murphy’s arms. Ryan Murphy’s, of course.
The first two episodes of The Fall of House Usher are dense and scattered between the distant past, the recent past and the present, which generates a lot of confusion. Who is he, what is she doing again? As the series has so many characters, listening becomes less fluid.
At the start of the third episode, and after several voluntary stops, I considered giving up. By the fourth time, finally gripped by the intrigue, I knew I would make it to the end (of the night).
For eight hours, fans of Edgar Allan Poe will have fun noting the multiple references to his books and his favorite themes. A crow here, a black cat there, a character called Auguste Dupin, one of the pillars of the detective genre dating from 1841.
The actress Carla Gugino plays one of the most enigmatic figures of The Fall of House Usher. In various forms, this disturbing woman, who is called Verna (anagram of raven, hint!), appears in all eras, in each story, and she sows death in a clandestine party, in a medical laboratory or in a shelter for abandoned animals. She is a demon with supernatural powers who has been relentlessly stalking the Ushers for several decades, too.
Another character to watch out for: Madeline, the twin sister of patriarch Roderick Usher, a brilliant, manipulative and cold person.
In an atmosphere of paranoia, feline eyes that glow in the night and special storm effects, The Fall of House Usher kicks off the October chill season. Place the little pumpkins on the porch and hang the skeletons from the banister, it’s a hurry.
Also, just because Halloween is approaching doesn’t mean you have to let your gallant guard down, right, Alexandre de If we loved each other ? Invited by the energetic Julie to a disco-style Roulathèque, Alexandre, 45, asked her, seeing her blouse with psychedelic patterns: “Have you put on your costume? » But Julie wasn’t dressed up for the 1970s. She was wearing her everyday clothes and not a Halloween outfit. Boops! (mixture of boo! and woops!)