‘Fall of the House of Usher’ Creates (and Punishes) 8 Uniquely Terrible People — Here’s How

One of the great delights of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Mike Flanagan’s latest (and last) Netflix horror series is seeing truly terrible people get what they deserve, courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe classics. As patriarch (and a Richard Sackler-esque pharmaceuticals CEO) Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) looks on in increasing horror, his six children are picked off one by one in diabolically twisted — yet easily explained! — ways.

As Ben Travers wrote in his IndieWire review, “‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ channels its mushrooming rage into demonstrable blunt force and a number of grisly kills (not to mention eliciting a pair of juicy performances). The writer-director known for crafting ghostly horror stories that double as empathetic examinations of trauma keeps his latest’s plotting rather straightforward, albeit less poignant and more pissed off. Audiences can sit back and savor each Usher death knowing it’s coming, appreciating the vicarious satisfactions along with Flanagan’s standard frights — real and otherworldly.”

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But each Usher feels fully fleshed out — at least until the flesh melts or gets ripped off — despite how little screen time some of them get. That’s due in large part to the carefully orchestrated production design and costuming of the Usher family, both of which immediately provide subtle, visual clues about each scion and their singular awfulness.

“Mike came in with a very specific thought for each of the characters,” production designer Laurin Kelsey told IndieWire. “He actually assigned a color to each of the family members, which I thought was really fun. So I had a very big color theme to start with. And then from there, I had to figure out what played well and fit their personality and then how to individualize them.”

Costume designer Terry Anderson had the same task, and both had to fulfill the requirements of the various stunts that each episode demanded — never more than in Tamerlane’s epic death. IndieWire spoke to both Kelsey and Anderson about designing the Ushers, the colors that Flanagan assigned each of them, and what made them all so distinct.

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