For a man 200 years lifeless, Edgar Allen Poe’s obtained loads of juice proper now, thanks the Succession-tinged terror of Netflix’s newest Mike Flanagan-helmed soapy horror collection, The Fall of the Home of Usher. Flanagan, identified for Stephen King variations like Gerald’s Sport and Physician Sleep and the slow-burn scares of The Haunting of Hill Home, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, unleashed Home of Usher over the weekend, primarily based on the basic Poe quick story and jammed-packed with loads of different references to the grasp of the macabre. (Listed below are useful guides from Nerdist and Entertainment Weekly on all of the allusions you might need missed.)
Naturally the shout-outs embrace Poe’s best-known poem, “The Raven,” the sing-songy ode to insanity and loss and supernaturally talkative birds.
Like Roderick Usher within the collection and little doubt a lot of you, I recited the hell out of “The Raven” in middle-school English (and subsequently tortured classmates by incessantly squawking “nevermore” throughout area journeys to the Poe house in Philly — a must-see for those who’re ever visiting the Metropolis of Brotherly Love, by the best way). Alas, on reflection my studying didn’t maintain a flickering candle to those unearthed beneath. See, Usher despatched me down a quaint and curious YouTube rabbit (raven?) gap to search out one of the best takes on the misplaced Lenore and firm. There was Christopher Walken (precisely what you’d anticipate) and The Muppet Infants (the place Gonza goes on his Poe-inspired imaginative and prescient quest on the 9:30 mark of an episode titled “Quoth the Weirdo”). An interpretation by Lou Reed (who will get factors for including atmospheric music however is dinged for considering it is good concept to rewrite Poe’s stanzas) and the Grateful Dead’s appropriately spaced-out “The Raven Space” jam. There was no surcease of streaming; my playlist swelled and head spun: American Gods and Sandman creator Neil Gaiman; Sean Astin and his father, John “Gomez Addams” Astin; Basil “Sherlock Holmes” Rathbone; John “Q from Star Trek” De Lancie; Bugs Bunny; Stan Lee; some dude’s impression of Morgan Freeman that too many individuals assume is actual… even viral “Chocolate Rain” crooner Tay Zonday.
Ultimately, nonetheless, 4 “Ravens” actually took flight and deserved a particular spot on my proverbial bust of Pallas.
William Shatner
From the starship captain who gave us trippy takes of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and “Rocketman” that completely nobody requested for comes this delightfully on-brand over-emotive rendition — full with a prop e book, presumably a quantity of forgotten lore. I’d fortunately beam this in for an evermore Halloween chuckle.
Christopher Lee
Lee checks all of the containers for quintessential Poe interpreter. Apart from his superb pipes, the person has obtained severely scary credentials: Earlier than latter-day roles as Rely Dooku in Star Wars and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings, Lee was within the vanguard of British horror, taking part in Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the mum for Hammer Studios and starring within the cult basic Wicker Man. His “Raven” is a stone-cold chiller.
Vincent Worth
This listing wouldn’t be full with out Worth, who earned his horror bona fides hamming it up in a string of Roger Corman’s low-budget Poe variations, together with The Pit and the Pendulum, which is briefly glimpsed in Usher. Like Shatner’s, that is half studying, half appearing and all in good campy enjoyable.
James Earl Jones
However nothing compares to the enduring bass of Jones, who infuses his unadorned blood-curdling rendition with rising dread.
That alone would qualify for my prime slot, however then Jones intoned “The Raven” for The Simpsons’s immortal first installment of “Treehouse of Horror” in 1990, offering the narration for a Homer fever dream liberally peppered with the characters’ personal vocal contributions, together with quothing the Bart-devilbird’s immortal catchphrase: “Eat my shorts.”
