Mike Flanagan Teases Undiscovered Easter Egg in The Fall of the House of Usher

Summary

• Mike Flanagan is known for his meticulous attention to detail, as each of his shows is filled with references and easter eggs.
• The same goes for The Fall of the House of Usher, one of Flanagan's most acclaimed projects.
• According to him, there is an Easter egg in the show that fans have yet to find.

The miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher was a magnificent parting gift to Netflix and its subscribers from the maestro of modern horror television, Mike Flanagan. Unlike the failed The Midnight Club, which was canceled after just one season, the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired series wowed critics and audiences with its neo-Gothic atmosphere as much as it terrified them.

Mike Flanagan's films and television series are known for their subtle horror atmosphere, as well as the unparalleled meticulousness he brings to every detail of his projects. From the eery background ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House, to the book titled 'Midnight Mass' in Hush, to the entire narrative of The Fall of the House of Usher based on Poe's iconic works, each story boasts how subtle yet phenomenal Mike Flannagan's storytelling is.

In his own words, however, The Fall of the House of Usher hides an Easter egg that fans have yet to find!

One of the Best Horror Projects on Netflix

The Fall of the House of Usher is a horror show loosely based on the short stories and poems of gothic literary genius Edgar Allan Poe. The series brings the Usher family into the present day, retelling the story in the manner of a Succession-type family drama. With a mystical twist, of course.

The series follows a family of billionaires brought together by the traumas of the narrator's ambition, cynical patriarch Roderick Usher, and his twin sister Madeline. As the story progresses, we learn that his children, heirs to the powerful pharmaceutical conglomerate that has brought no small amount of suffering to the human race, are dying one by one under mysterious circumstances, and that the cause is Roderick and Madeline themselves.

Coupled with Flanagan's brilliantly written script and the outstanding skills of the cast, the series has become one of the most acclaimed in the filmmaker's career. You can check out the critics' and viewers' Rotten Tomatoes scores for each of Flanagan's shows below:

• The Haunting of Hill House (2018) — 93/91%
• The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) — 88/67%
• Midnight Mass (2021) — 87/79%
• The Midnight Club (2022) — 86/55%
• The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) — 90/80%

Mike Flanagan on the Easter Egg Nobody's Found Yet

The Fall of the House of Usher is notable for the sheer number of references and allusions to the oeuvre of Edgar Allan Poe, from the most obvious interpretations of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Gold Bug, and other short stories by the author, to less obvious nods to Poe lore — Roderic's Cognac, for example, refers to the one left at the writer's grave for 100 years by a mysterious admirer.

However, according to the filmmaker, most fans and media outlets research the series so thoroughly that Flanagan himself and his writing team were surprised when viewers spotted such sophisticated 'references' that were not actually intentional.

'People put these articles where they were breaking down all the Edgar Allan Poe references which were really, there was one or two in there that I was like, "Oh, really? Yeah, totally. We worked really hard on that."'

And yet, according to him, amid countless painstaking dissections of the show, fans have been unable to find one Easter egg. Of course, Flanagan didn't reveal what that moment was.

'There's one in particular that none of those articles caught. Someday, someone will get it. But I don't want to ruin it.'

If you want to revisit the series and find the undiscovered Easter egg, all eight episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher are available to stream on Netflix.

Source: TV Line.