Flanagan’s Usher Turns Poe’s Masque Into a Harrowing Party Scene

Mike Flanagan’s 2023 take on Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, reframes Poe’s work for a modern audience while leaning into the poet’s most famous motifs. The series names characters after figures from Poe’s writing and treats the originals as a touchstone rather than a strict blueprint.

The second episode borrows from “The Masque of the Red Death” and stages a masked rave thrown by Prospero “Perry” Usher at a condemned Fortunato Pharmaceuticals building. Perry rigs the sprinklers to run from the building’s water tanks, not knowing the tanks contain corrosive chemicals the company was hiding; when the system activates, the crowd is grotesquely disintegrated and Perry dies in the carnage.

Flanagan stages the sequence with brutal clarity. Exits are locked by Verna, the sprinklers hiss and then begin to sizzle flesh, and the camera holds on the slow, agonizing aftermath. Even when many of those present are unsympathetic, the scene denies viewers any relief.

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