Usher

First trailer for Fall of the House of Usher.

Let’s discuss. Or rather, I’m going to semi-rant, but only semi - read on.

Usher is one of my three favorite Poe pieces – the other two being Annabel Lee and Masque of the Red Death (which I was prompted to revisit in 2020. I also re-read The Stand. I was that person.) I have always treasured it for the masterful creation of and growing atmospheric horror; that disquieting and evocative setting; the questions raised about what is going on with Madeline: is she dead/alive/a ghost?; and of course for the double meaning of the fall of the house. As a kid on first reading, it kinda blew my mind and the fascination stuck.

What I gather from the trailer is that they’ve gone in a very different direction. It looks like a Knives Out/Succession family story with jump scares and lots of blood. It also looks a little like that that other currently running overwhelming cast series, Branagh’s Agatha Christies. Of the three movies/show mentioned, Knives Out is definitely my favorite, despite my love of Christie. I dislike the screenplays mainly (as the acting is decent and the settings are delicious) not because they are not faithful but because they 1. fall flat and 2. don’t develop the characters much at all. Which is hard to do with those bloated casts. The same may be a pitfall in Usher, though they dealt with a village of people adroitly in Midnight Mass.

Here's the thing: I want to and will watch the Usher movie. I watch adaptations of lots of my favorites, from Lord of the Rings to Dune. The best are a fresh interpretation that indicates a clear love of the material and desire to tell that story in the filmmakers own style. (This is a common pitfall of historical fiction: fill in what you will, but what we actually know is usually good stuff. It if isn’t, why choose that moment to fictionalize in the first place? Pick a better time.)

Clearly the new movie is not telling Poe’s story with a modernized setting. But my philosophy about adaptations, good and bad, is the fundamental truth that we still have the original. We can always read it again. No adaptation can take that joy from us. Now we just have to be patient with the people who only know the movie.

We don’t want to act like comic book bros after all.