#Spooktober 19 – The Fall of the House of Usher

October 19, 2023

The show is a new and much anticipated one since it marks the return of Mike Flanagan, author and director of the acclaimed Midnight Mass. Loosely based on the homonymous short story by Edgar Allan Poe and taking inspiration from other stories as well, it brings the plot to a contemporary setting and shows us the CEO of a pharmaceutical company being confronted with his guilt as his children start mysteriously dying.

Roderick Usher is played by Bruce Greenwood, who briefly played Pike in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, while his twin sister Madeline is Mary McDonnell, a.k.a. President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica. Carla Gugino, who also starred in The Haunting of Hill House by Flanagan plays Verna, the haunting raven from Poe’s famous poem.
The show spans across 8 episodes and covers different timelines, with young Roderick and Madeline played by younger actors alternatively seen in Midnight Mass and/or The Haunting of Hill House. Mark Hamill guest stars as Arthur Pym.

List of Episodes

“A Midnight Dreary”
“The Masque of the Red Death”
“Murder in the Rue Morgue”
“The Black Cat”
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
“Goldbug”
“The Pit and The Pendulum”
“The Raven”

comics and illustration

Leo Ortolani, Tapum

A un certo punto ci sarà una battuta, in questo fumetto, e riderete. Sappiate che è l’unica. Com’è giusto che sia. Se devo paragonare quest’opera a qualcosa, il confronto più azzeccato è probabilmente lo spettacolo che Marco Paolini trasse dal Sergente nella neve di Rigoni

August 9, 2026 9:00 am

Summertime

Omeros in the Caribbeans

Derek Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, and painter, and one of the major voices of Caribbean literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, and his work often explores Caribbean history, identity, colonial inheritance, and the meeting of European and African

August 9, 2026 6:00 am

books and literature

Ioanna Papadopoulou’s The Castaway and the Witch

I had a genuine “oh shit” moment when I read the author’s preface saying this was darker than “Winter Harvest” because – and I absolutely ADORED “Winter Harvest” – that was pitch-black dark. I thought “we’re all going to die”. This maybe has something to

August 8, 2026 9:00 am