Netflix's Fall Of The House Of Usher Just Snagged A Legendary Star Wars Actor
Spooky ol' Mike Flanagan is at it again, adapting a major work of literary horror for Netflix. Flanagan may be best known for his two haunted house stories for the streamer: "The Haunting of Hill House," loosely based on the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, and "The Haunting of Bly Manor," adapted from the works of Henry James. After creating an original miniseries for Netflix, "Midnight Mass," the celebrated horror creator is doing another adaptation, taking the works of Edgar Allan Poe and synthesizing them into "The Fall of the House of Usher."
Originally a short story published in 1839, "The Fall of the House of Usher" has been adapted and interpolated many times before. As part of Roger Corman's Poe cycle, "House of Usher" starred Vincent Price as Roderick Usher and featured a script by sci-fi and horror vet Richard Matheson. Philip Glass adapted it into an opera in 1987, and, as discussed with Film School Rejects, Guillermo Del Toro's "Crimson Peak" drew inspiration from the Poe story. Flanagan is set to join in that storied lineage of adaptations, and he just announced that an actor as iconic as Vincent Price has signed onto the project.
Mark Hamill will be travelling to Poe Country
In a Twitter thread, Mike Flanagan revealed that Mark Hamill — aka Luke Skywalker, aka The Joker, aka Jim the Vampire from "What We Do in the Shadows" — will be among the cast of "The Fall of the House of Usher." He joins Frank Langella as Roderick Usher, Mary McDonnell as Madeline Usher, Carl Lumbly as Poe's iconic detective C. Auguste Dupin, and Flanagan's frequent collaborator Carla Gugino in an unannounced role.
Hamill's role has also not been specified yet. Flanagan gave us some hints, though. He tweeted that Hamill's character would be "a character surprisingly at home in the shadows." We also know that "The Fall of the House of Usher" is adapting many of Poe's greatest hits. The inclusion of Dupin from Poe's detective stories like "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" even lets us know that the show won't limit itself to Poe's horror output.
Hamill could play any number of figures from Poe's catalog. He is an experienced voice-over artist, so it's even possible that he could be voicing the Raven. But that's just the tip of the Poe-berg. Hamill could play the unnamed mourner of Annabel Lee, the unfortunate soul who gets boarded up in the wall in "The Cask of Amontillado," that guy who hears the beating of that hideous heart, or even the pendulum itself. It's a mystery fit for C. Auguste Dupin.