La Chute de la maison Usher

Cette fois, Flanagan a déçu. J'ai lu l'intégralité de l'œuvre de Poe et justement « La Chute de la maison Usher » est peut-être ma pièce préférée, mais cette minisérie ne reflète en rien l'esthétique d'Edgar Allan Poe, combine très lourdement des éléments choisis de son œuvre sous la forme d'exécutions prévisibles de personnages secondaires et relie le tout avec une intrigue principale dont la résolution finale est vraiment bof. Et autant j'ai beaucoup apprécié les Sermons de minuit superbement orchestrés de Flanagan il y a deux ans, autant j'ai eu du mal à aller jusqu'au bout cette fois-ci. Et cette inclusion omniprésente des séries Netflix présentée comme un coup de poing dans l'œil commence aussi à sérieusement me taper sur le système. (25/10/2023)

I liked Flanagan's Doctor Sleep a lot (despite its slightly excessive running time), and Poe's stories, while I'm not very familiar with them, have an attractive aura for readers and viewers alike, so The Fall of the House of Usher was a pretty obvious choice. After watching it, however, I have to say that I have mixed feelings. Personally, I would have shortened both the running time of the episodes and the miniseries as a whole, as it was a really slapdash and unnecessarily drawn out in places. You watch a whole cast of characters who are disgusting and who can’t help but die. The creators could have easily increased the cadence of the deaths, which were always foreshadowed anyway (a less suspenseful variation on Final Destination?), and thus reduce the overall running time. I was also struck by the overly obvious inclusiveness – as if the creators had taken an imaginary RAL formula and just ticked off ethnicities and sexualities: the unwritten rule of "less is more" certainly applied in this case. Of the characters, I most enjoyed the older versions of the siblings played by Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell, and of course the "devilish" Carla Gugino. If The Fall of the House of Usher as a whole had ridden on the atmosphere of the last episode, which I enjoyed immensely, I wouldn't have hesitated to give it a higher rating, but the nice finale was unfortunately preceded by seven poorly crafted episodes. (09/11/2023)

The reparation for the Midnight Club was a success. For me, it’s weaker than both Hauntings and probably even than (the second half of) Midnight Mass, but the director and his court actors should still be applauded for this modern take of E.A. Poe's stories. Flanagan has become a conceptual creator who always has it all very nicely thought out, planned out, refined into a compelling, meaningful whole that's not always something to actively fear, but mostly something to think about. The first episode hooked me reliably, the six middle episodes were made a little less interesting by their identical structure (again, it could have been shortened and condensed), and the last episode concluded satisfyingly. Succession in a horror package and with the phenomenally charismatic Carla Gugino. (23/10/2023)