Spooky Season Picks, 2023
(Spooky Season goes through November!)
I find it odd that, for many people, “Spooky Season” is a concept confined to the month of October. Clearly it should last all of November as well. I find October beautiful for all its bold color, but November, with its darker, shorter days and the trees nearly bare of leaves, its golden fields fading to brown…this to me is a much spookier time in the landscape, and it definitely puts me in the mood for watching more horror.
Of course, some folks like to watch horror year ‘round (I’m one of them), and there’s certainly plenty of new shows and films coming out constantly. This autumn there’s been some excellent new shows and films, and more to come. I’ll be featuring short reviews of some I’ve enjoyed that I think you should watch for over the next few weeks.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix) This miniseries is the latest from Mike Flanagan, whose contemporary adaptations from classic works of literature (The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and The Haunting of Bly Manor, based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James) have all been critically acclaimed and extremely popular. Then there’s the fantastic original series, Midnight Mass, about a remote island community that goes through some upheaval when a new parish priest arrives. And most recently, The Midnight Club, about a group of terminally-ill teenagers who tell ghost stories to pass the time.
The newest miniseries, based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, features many of the same fine cast members who have appeared in Flanagan’s other hits (including Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, and Henry Thomas). It’s a bold interpretation, framing the downfall of a wealthy family within the context of a powerful pharmaceutical company whose signature drug has caused widespread addiction and death from overdoses.
The series portrays the accidental deaths of the adult children of patriarch and CEO Roderick Usher die mysteriously, one after the other. Each episode is named for a story by Poe, creating rich context for the characters to die in very gruesome and theatrical ways. Roderick (played by Zach Gilford and Bruce Greenwood) decides to confess his decades of misdeeds to a district attorney (Carl Lumbly) he worked with and betrayed many years ago, and the story flips back and forth in time very effectively, painting a family portrait of privilege, evil and moral decay.
The lavish, decadent lives of the Usher children are rendered with gorgeous design and cinematography efforts. This miniseries is a suspenseful, atmospheric and compelling watch, perfect for dark rainy nights when the wind is whipping outside.
Stay tuned for some more Spooky Season reviews…and a Samhain Season special subscription deal for those who want to subscribe and support my work.