UNBINGEDStreaming services, cable TV and Primetime television are fighting for your viewership now more than ever. UNBINGED is here to help you weed through it all, with reviews of the latest shows that highlight what we love, what we hate and what we love to hate-watch, too. The Halloween season is upon us, and with it comes a new crop of scary new series, specials, and shows poised to get audiences in the morbid mood. For this edition of UnBinged, we take a gander at new works from a few masters of horror: Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Don Mancini’s Chucky, and John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams. 

 

 

The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

Master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe is a grim fabler of gothy goodness who has been thrilling dark-hearted English majors and black-lipstick wearers ever since he put a pen to paper. So when word got out that Netflix’s golden boy Mike Flanagan was going to adapt his work The Fall of the House of Usher, it seemed both fitting and perplexing. How does one adapt a sordid short story into a multi-episode series?

Well, you don’t. Instead, you use the tale as a foundation for a series weaving Poe’s work into an eerie amalgamation that stands on its own. The Fall of the House of Usher is not an adaptation but a transformation of the writer’s body of work using the cursed family as the central focus. In this version, Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) is far from the sickly figure from the original tale, but rather a titan of industry with six highly-accomplished, awful children who are doing their very best to serve their own self interests. And this is the story of their demise.

Flanagan pulls references and characters from classic Poe works to create complex and modern morality tales. Recalling Hammer films of yesteryear with a smattering of Tales from the Crypt, the adaptation maintains the foreboding flair of the original work as characters and references to various tales are united in a single narrative, creating a tour de force of classic horror.

The cast is superb with Flanagan’s usual gang of players all present and accounted for. Greenwood particularly shines as the head of the family and does a significant amount of the heavy lifting as a character we both sympathize and loathe in equal parts. Other standouts include Mary McDonnell as Madeline Usher, the true backbone of the family, and a gravelly-voiced Mark Hamill, who joins the troupe as the Usher’s attorney, Arthur Pym, a man who knows where all the bodies are hidden (and hid most of them himself).

Though most English majors and book lovers will no doubt know the outcome of the stories based on character names and episode titles, the road to ruin for the Usher family is vastly entertaining, filled with drug-fueled orgies, evil maniacal monkeys, and a myriad of ravens. Usher is among Flanagan’s best work because of the family dynamic and the well-assembled cast who bring complexity to characters that would otherwise be categorized as two-bit villains in lesser hands. The Fall of the House of Usher is a spectacular use of not just Flanagan’s talents, but those of his cast and it makes for an ingenious way to position Poe for contemporary audiences.

Chucky (Season 3; Syfy/USA Network)

Congratulations, Charles Lee Ray! You are moving up in the world. No longer the plastic plague of Chicago or the scourge of Hackensack, NJ, the most gruesome Good Guy to ever roll off an assembly line has made his way to the White House. And just when you thought domestic affairs couldn’t get any more fucked.

Don Mancini’s Chucky TV series has been the surprise hit of the small screen since its debut in 2021 thanks to a razor-sharp writing, a good amount of grisly gore, and a clear story arc for the demonic doll. Now in its third season, Chucky aims beyond terrorizing suburbanites. His eye is on the prize as the plastic psychopath finds a place in the heart of Henry (Callum Vinson), the son of President James Collins (Devon Sawa, in his fourth role of the series).

The gang from Chucky’s previous bloodbath is still alive, somewhat well, and very much on the hunt for Chucky. Jack (Zackary Arthur), Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) take to social for their search, but luckily, Chucky loves to play and soon lures them to his new hideout at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Let the games begin!

Chucky is an icon of horror for good reason. Fueled by malicious intent, cutting quips, and a marketable look, the creepy little bastard’s staying power is in no small part due to the talents of both Mancini’s vision and Brad Dourif’s talent as the voice behind the plastic facade. And the third season’s political twist looks to keep the flavor fresh by taking the character in bold, ridiculous new directions that fit the campiness of the show and the franchise as a whole.

John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams (Peacock)

Halloween. The Thing. The Fog. Escape from New York. In the Mouth of Madness. Master of horror John Carpenter isn’t horror royalty for nothing. The director/writer/composer/occasional actor has helped mold the genre for the better part of the last century, bringing it out of the shadows of Hollywood and into the forefront as an important part of the entertainment industry. His most recent endeavor is a new anthology called Suburban Screams, for which the helmer lends his talents as producer, director and narrator. But sadly, it’s not quite worthy of his name.

Suburban Screams examines the evil that dwells beneath the surface of domestic bliss. Using a mixture of news clips, interviews from people with some connection to the tragedies, and actors to re-create events, the series rehashes true crime events from small towns and digs deep into urban legends that have plagued rural areas for eons.

Taking a page from shows like Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted, Suburban Screams uses dramatizations to fully realize the horrific events of these middle-class areas. Talking heads of folks from the periphery provide accounts that supposedly transpired, but much of the drama is filled in with exaggerations and what-if scenarios. The hope is to create a show that captures the interest of true crime aficionados, while pulling at the heartstrings of audiences with eye-witness accounts, but substandard acting and a script brimming with overused horror tropes make the re-creations feel cheap and the victims seem exploited.

There is nothing scary or spooky about Suburban Screams’ campfire ghost stories and boilerplate cliches. The dramatizations might be a throwback to the energy of the ’90s true crime shows, it’s difficult to find entertainment in these stories. This is a show that wants to spotlight forgotten frights, but only manages to commercialize them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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