‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Review: Netflix’s Ambitious Horror Parable Gets in Its Own Way

Among the glut of programming that has either documented the ills of the pharmaceutical industry (Hulu’s “Dopesick” and Netflix’s “Painkiller”) or the rotted core of the uber rich (“The Menu,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Glass Onion,” etc.) one wouldn’t necessarily expect another iteration to come from Netflix’s horror TV impresario Mike Flanagan. Even more surprising would be that such an allegory would be grafted onto the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.

It’s a bit of a curious and bold gambit on paper — a limited series that loosely bases each episode off of a different Poe work (its title comes from a Poe story of the same name), all of which adds up to a big pharma horror parable — but who better to pull it off than Flanagan? The series creator, who co-wrote the show and directs half of its episodes, has become a sturdy (and incredibly popular) hand behind a consistent stream of ambitious television each Halloween season over the last few years (e.g.