#Mike Flannagan

[druidcore]

mike flannagan essentially saying that greed and capitalism and the hunger for money (not borne out of a need for safety and contentment, but for power and the urge for more) is death to an artist. that poetry and truth and art cannot live in tandem with greed. that they are anathema to the duplicitous, treasonous and covetous nature of the wealthy and gluttonous.

[moxyphinx]

T'Nia Miller as Victorine LaFourcade in THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (2023)

[metrodisco]

mike flannagan took one look at carla gugino and said "you will be the wise woman who is kinda scary and somehow tied to the supernatural" and she kills it every time

[citizensun]

Queerness and the House of Usher (spoilers!)

See I just added these Thoughts to the tags in @quecksilvereyes 's post but now I have Feelings too

TFotHoU (or HoU, as I will refer to it here), as expected from a Mike Flannagan show, has a bunch of Queer Rep™ to talk about. HoU is, also, about remarkably evil people - amoral capitalists who'll step over anyone if it means they'll get something from it. And look! Some of them are queer! Kinky too!

That's bad queer representation... right?

The show isn't that clear when stablishing sexualities, but we see that at least three of the Usher kids - Napoleon, Camille and Victorine - have same sex SOs/assistants with curious job descriptions. Prospero's taste for orgies probably implies queerness too, but honestly I don't remember if he gets it going with any guys in the story. I honestly have no idea about Tamerlane's voyerism thingie and Frederick is the only one with a "traditional family" going on.

Unrelated, but: Leo is definitely cheating on his bf Julius. Completely dismissing about his worries for him too. And for his cat. That's objectively evil, clearly. Vic literally killed her fiancée Alessandra, though she didn't stuff her under the floorboard, which is an L when compared to Poe's original. Cam doesn't believe in true love. Perry blackmailed his sister in law. Mean. He's also got a surprisingly high kill count for the family's disappointment, but since unlike Roderick he only killed rich people, we stan. I don't belong in Kinky spaces so I haven't got a big take on Tammie, only that - well, she's completely dismissing of her husband and sees him as a prop, just like the sex worker she hires.

Huh.

See, the nature of a story called "the fall of X family" is that X family is going to be the main character. The title kinda implies that they're falling for a reason, ergo, they're despicable fucking people. And they're queer! They're very queer. Many flavors of gay. They're the main characters, and they're monsters, and they're gay.

No, that's not bad rep.

Queerness as a movement, a community and a theory is very focused on scaping a cisheteronormative society's binaries (ie man/woman, husband/wife, public/private) and creating living conditions to those who fall outside of these categories - mlms and wlws, the trans, the nbs, the aros and aces... we are all queer, strange and estranged from this weird and limited worldview. And so we create a community for ourselves. It's very focused on care and anti-stablishment. Since a cisheteronormative society tends to be very white, rich and western, it's also focuses on anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. Y'all know that, this is Tumblr and we love leftist Discourse.

I also know many, many gay people irl who are not like that at all. Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, terfs, completely apolitical people and the like. Sexuality at it's core is personal, not political, so there are gay people out there who are perfectly comfortable with their sexuality on an individual level but do not see the point of getting involved in the broader context. They're queer, but are they...?

Well—

Not to mention there's lots of asshole gays out there! Don't you have a shitty ex? Have you never been almost run over by a drunken butch who blew cigar smoke into your face? I have! Life experiences are just like that. Maybe you should touch more grass. You'll probably find a lucky gift from your neighbour's dog, who is an astrology-obsessed bisexual and also really hot but stopped making out with you at a party once she found out you're a pisces (the neighbour, not the dog).

(Granted, none of this is as bad as implanting an experimental heart contraption into the fiancée you just killed because she dared to have ethical principles and then being so consumed with grief you stab yourself in front you'd your dad but you know how it goes. We're not the 1%.)

My point is, queer people are people. We are complex. We fuck up, and sometimes there's still times to fix things and sometimes... there isn't. We're consumed by jealousy and regret and sometimes we're so locked into our own head we stop believing the rest of the world is real too. Just like any other people, because unfortunately, queerness isn't a sign of morality.

And even if queerness does mean community, kindness and acceptance, tell me... Where the hell would the Usher kids get those from? The people around them are not really peers – they're ass-istants, blowjob-giving apartments, orgy mates, heart surgery providers, hired fitness moneybags, perfect housewives. Even if the partners are all shown to care for the Ushers, there's still a distance, a power gap, that makes the relationships fundamentally wrong.

And the partners? Arguably they're the good queer rep in the show, but look – even when Julius and Alessandra are shown to be good people (or at least people with an ethical boundary), they're not the good gays, they're simply the good SO's to a family of psychos. Exactly like Bill and Morrie, who afawk are straight people.

Which leads us to HoU's parameter of morality - Auguste Dupin. He refuses to drink the Amontillado, symbol of all the Usher opulence over the years. He got screwed over by the Usher twins and by the Raven herself, but he refused to cave in (except for the informant part, admittedly). He's not a good gay guy; he is gay and he is a good man.

The fundamental difference between our show's main tragic yaoi couple isn't that Auggie is a happily out gay man (and therefore is good) while Roderick is a sad divorced hetero (and therefore is bad). Auggie is the richer man because he is a good man; he has a spouse and children and grandchildren he loves with all his heart. He has a family and a community and he has found a sort of happiness no money can buy. Roderick owns the world – but what does he really have? What do his children even have? How could they ever build communities for themselves if they were never in one? Their father made them compete for his love. He never nurtured their bonds, he just showered them with money and excess until it was too much for them to handle. Juno herself pointed out - they were never a family. The House of Usher was only that. A house. It is empty and soulless.

What is queerness without a community? How could the people who represent the relentless corporate normativity and cutthroat capitalism ever be good queer rep? How can they even be queer?

Hear me out: on the most individual, simple level, being queer is still about not fitting in. These kids are bastards. They are are PoC and women in a predominantly male and white dominated space. They're on top of the world, but they're still outsiders to their own House. How could they not be queer?

And yes, I know this discussion takes a different turn when it comes to representation in media, but it's not like Flannagan fell into a Hays Code-era flamboyant villain trope. Queerness is just there. Just like Victorine and August are both black people in (arguably) the opposite ends of the morality spectrum, there are queer characters of many kinds here. The story just happens to be about the fucked up ones.

HoU is a poignant critique of capitalism and a surprisingly funny adaptation of Poe. We'll judge it by that. It happens to be queer – more things should be.

[timeslugarts]

My wife, next questiom

[jessicafangirl]

Representing my fellow HorrorHound's in ISOD the 90s. The pre sale ends in two days to get your name in the credits and snag it first. Here's the link: https://90shorrordoc.com/?sca_ref=7218948.PmEGJ5UgUV

[cornyonmains]

While The Midnight Club might be my least favorite Flannagan project, I have to give it up for how well he wrote Ilonka. She's a textbook smart teenager. She's smart, but it hasn't turned into intelligence, as evidenced by her Mary Shelley rant, which had a lot of opinions that weren't quite her own, but good points she'd heard other adults make and memorized.

She'd have been brought back down to Earth in college, but she never had the opportunity. She went straight into a hospice, with no reason to think anything other than she's the smartest smarty that ever smarted and can smart her way out of this situation with smarts, because she's smart. She's insufferable, and it's one of the best written teenagers I've ever seen. Because ONLY a teenager could be so insufferable even a terminal illness makes it hard to stymie your distaste.

Even her story about the witches highlighted how Ilonka saw herself in the beginning, as special and powerful. Even the wardrobe in her store reflects that, lots of billowing fabrics with nature prints evoking the feeling of a goddess. The lights on her forehead when scrying highlighting her pride, her mind, and how she sees it as this superior thing. Even Shasta knows puffing her up about how smart she is is how to manipulate her. The depths of Ilonka's denial knows no limits. Her willingness to drag the other kids down with her really highlights this pride, because Ilonka doesn't know what it is to be wrong.

While I wasn't overly fond of the Midnight Club, I do think it's a shame Ilonka's journey was cut short. I think where this story was ultimately headed, where the horror of it was headed, was in teaching that sometimes the real horror isn't what lurks in the dark, but the inevitability of darkness itself. I feel like Ilonka's journey for season 2 would have been finding peace with the inevitable, the same as Anya managed to do. And accepting death.

I also have a fan theory that the janitor guy is death, because I was getting some major William Bludworth in Final Destination vibes off him, just less ominous. Also, if it is death, what's doubly hilarious is that Ilonka even managed to tell him how smart she is. God, I see too much of my 18 year old self in her, and I don't like it.

[buildoblivion]

oh my god what do you MEAN that the guys who did the usher, hill house and midnight mass soundtrack also did the fnaf movie 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[druidcore]

don't mind me just getting emotional about the way art makes echoes and like lenore's bravery saving lives in the years to come, edgar allen poe's art, which was inspired by the artists before him, inspires art that will inspire art that will inspire art –– that forms a bloodline of its own, traceable for history and far more lasting than money ever could be.

[hypnoticcastiel]

bittersweet...

We invested many emotions in the first season of The Midnight Club. It's both bittersweet and fu**ed up that Netflix killed the story & characters, both the surviving ones and the ghost stuff. Imagine the more complex second season play out in the magnificent storytelling that Flannagan shows in some of his projects. I don't say that it was a perfect mystery-thriller in S1, but based on the introductions and storytelling and emotions... season 2 would have been Flannagan's best work. Just read his summary or overview of what was planned for S2.

[artemis69]

th

What each Mike Flanagan horror series represents: The Haunting of Hill House (2018) The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) Midnight Mass (2021) The Midnight Club (2022) The Fall of The House of Usher (2023)

[daincrediblegg]

I really wish people would stop being obtuse with their readings about things. Is it really demonizing The Thing or is it deliberately using a social perception and common tropes to frame the character in a certain light so it can deliberately subvert those things at the precise moment when it is necessary to prove that point that people are Not Like That?

[revleftshark]

Jac Schaeffer has managed to instill a level if trust in me I only have with a few other creators. I will in fact now watch anything written and produced by her.

[wingsofhcpe]

pros of watching bly manor: beautifully written story, sapphic action, made me Feel Things

cons of watching bly manor: I am now filled with terrible anxiety and fear over losing those i love most (more of that fear/andiety than usual, anyway)

[salt-cedar]

I didn't catch that at first watch, then did, doubted for a while and now must admit that this is true. And words can't describe how much I don't like this. As happy as I was to know that the cat was alive and fine, this also means that Leo, strictly speaking, never did much wrong. He is just kind of a pathetic dude + a huge junkie but that is hard to hold against him. Addiction is a disease and he was not even close to admitting it to himself, hense the shitty behavior. This doesn't even compare to other Usher siblings. And the reason I don't like this is because Verna made it clear many times that she torments the siblings before death for their crimes. And Leo got a whole lot of tormenting, starting with the dead cat hallucination! And what are the crimes? Before the dead cat "incident" he is just a lazybag and a cheater. After, people often point out how he could take any other cat that needed a home but preferred Pluto II so he could hide his issues from Julius and not confront him a little longer. Which is a very typical addict move, and I thought we are not villianizing addiction. Again, this doesn't compare to his siblings, some of which were even offered a gentle death (like Camille, a serial blackmailer, who got offered to go home and then it was implied that she would have died peacefully in her bed). So, what's Leo tormented for by ghosts and visions?? If he did kill the cat while high, there still would be somewhat limited responsibility but at least that would've shown an Usher ruthlessness and cruelty in him.

If anyone's confused about how the real Pluto showed up at the end of FotHoU episode 4, it's simple: Leo never killed her. That was the first hallucination of many. He literally just left the window open.

I had that figured out from Episode 3 because, speaking from experience, there is no fucking way to clean up blood that fast. Blood is extremely hard to get out of most surfaces, especially a white carpet. Leo just started cleaning, and when he sobered up, the blood was gone.

[magnoliapromenadegalleria]

SPOILER...KIND OF...FOR THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER...BUT NOT REALLY...

...I was watching the first episode of The Fall of the House of Usher earlier, in the dark as one does right. So boom, Roderick Usher is speaking to Attorney General Dupine in his old house, and he's telling a story about his mother who is dead. Cool? Cool. Dupine asks Roderick why he is telling him about his mother. Roderick answers along the lines of "She's here, she's right behind you...Y'all. Tell me why I not only paused the show, but turned my phone's flashlight on and pointed it at the screen. Like that was gonna help me see his dead mamma better. I'm spooked.

SPOILER...KIND OF...FOR THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER...BUT NOT REALLY...