Some students who have read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” as part of their sophomore English class’ required reading are looking forward to watching Netflix’s recently released adaptation despite its being rated Mature for a TV series.
“I want to see what happens in the series and find out why everything happened in the story,” said sophomore Anthony Rowland, who read Poe’s short story in English teacher Christian Penuelas’ third period class at the start of the school year.
Rowland said the tale – featured as “Unit 1: Inside the Nightmare” in the sophomore English textbook – left readers with many unanswered questions about its narrator and his visit to a mansion belonging to his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, and his sister, Madeline. Poe’s ending literally has the building start to fall apart, packing that final punch of Gothic horror and mystery to the story.
“I think it lacked a little bit of context as to why the house was cursed and why there was a connection between Usher and the house,” Rowland said.
Netflix released on Thursday, Oct. 12, all eight episodes of the limited series directed by Mike Flanagan and billed as a “wicked horror series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.”
An Accolade poll of 122 respondents administered from Oct. 4-13 showed 59% percent preferred to wait and see how much hype the Netflix adaptation gets on social media. Only 20% voted to watch it once it’s released.
Nevertheless, sophomore Kalani Lodrigueza said “Usher” will be on her Halloween viewing list.
“It’s a really good Halloween story,” Lodrigueza said about Poe’s story. “And I also like film a lot, so that story [being] made into a TV show would be really cool to see.”
Even though the Netflix series is TV-MA – the trailer includes an F-bomb – the sophomore who read Poe’s tale in English teacher Tommy Li’s fifth period class earlier this month said she wants to give it a chance.
“I mean, it obviously depends on what type of [Mature] rating it is,” Lodrigueza said. “If it’s just like horror or gore, you know, that’s the kind of stuff I’m really into. Not too much, but I do like violence.”
Christina Zubko, who teaches three honors sophomore English classes, said she watched the first episode and a half on the release date but took issue with the material as being more for an adult audience.
“I mean, I knew there was going to be an F-bomb because I saw it in the trailer, but I thought it would just be a little bit,” said Zubko, who was also concerned about the amount of nudity in what she had watched. “It’s like, the dialogue is filled with the F-bomb. So I was a bit disappointed in that.”
The instructor said she appreciated the creativity in the names given to some of the characters, though the series strays far from the original story.
“They do drop in how the name of the Ushers’ company is called ‘Fortunato’ like from [Poe’s other story] ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ ” Zubko said. “So I thought, OK, well, that’s clever, and I guess people who have seen more of it said there’s more of that in there later on, but I don’t even know if I’m going to get that far because … I can find something better to watch.”
Another sophomore honors English teacher, Thomas Butler, shared similar concerns about Flanagan’s modern interpretation of a Poe classic.
“None of [the Netflix adaptations] really seem to be doing much justice to any of the stories,” said Butler, who does not plan to watch the adaptation. “In my opinion, they shouldn’t use the title of [“The Fall of the House of Usher”] because that’s not the story that they’re telling any longer.”
Butler said the series title should have been something like, “The Haunted Palace,” a poem that the male sibling entertains the narrator with in the original story.
“A title like that – which references the story but does not claim to be the same story – I think would work well,” Butler said. “Even something like “The Ushers,” like the BBC did with ‘Sherlock,’ would indicate that this is a work, which is influenced by the original, not a retelling of the original.”
The teacher said the series may draw students who would rather watch the series than read the story.
“I think they’re more likely to get the students who try to substitute watching the movie for actually reading,” he said. “I further predict that such students will be greatly disappointed in their scores when they try to answer a quiz based on their Netflix-knowledge of the tale.”
Sophomore Noah Winter, who read the story in Butler’s third period class at the start of the semester, said although he is unsure if the series would interest him, he may stream it.
“I feel like I would want to watch it just to see how good or bad [the series] might actually be,” Winter said.
Sorry, there was an error loading this poll.
Sophomore Norah Chowdhury, who said she enjoyed reading the short story in Zubko’s class this month but disliked how open-ended the story’s conclusion is, plans to watch the adaptation for more information on the Ushers.
“I like having a little bit more to work with backstory-wise,” Chowdhury said. “I’m also very excited to see how modern-day artists interpret this centuries-old work.”
However, the sophomore said she has mixed feelings about the TV-MA rating of the series.
“I hope that they don’t try to make the story edgier or try to cater toward the Gen Z audience like I’ve seen other classic adaptations do so,” Chowdhury said. “But at the same time, I feel as though a [TV-MA] rating used correctly could really breathe the horror of the original story into life.”
With Halloween a few weeks away, some former sophomores who still remember the story from when they were in 10th grade said they don’t mind watching what Netflix has to offer.
“During second period [on Thursday, Oct. 12] when I finished all my work, I just went on Netflix on my Macbook, and I saw [the series trailer], and I was like, ‘Oh, it looks like it’s really cool,’ ” junior Bianca Baciu said.
The two-minute preview starts with a skyview shot of a cemetery featuring nine gravestones. Then that transitions into a scene of Bruce Greenwood who’s lying on the ground with blood dripping from his left nostril and saying the words, “It’s time,” three times.
After the traditional Netflix animated logo appears, a courtroom scene includes a voiceover from an attorney calling the Ushers a “crime family.” Eventually, subsequent shots reveal that this interpretation of Poe’s story will focus more on the Usher children, which strays from the original, and how they are being killed one at a time.
“It would be a smart marketing choice for Netflix to [premiere] it during the Halloween season,” said sophomore Noelani Canotal, who’s in Li’s fifth period English class. “I have a feeling that they did it on purpose because it is a gory horror story. And so since it is so close to Halloween, it’s a good idea [to release it in mid-October].”
This story was originally published on The Accolade on October 17, 2023.