Cat lovers, be warned
It’s the horror series that Netflix viewers can’t get enough of, but some are urging people to avoid one particular scene from The Fall of the House of Usher.
Spoilers ahead
Based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name and other works by the legendary writer, the show is from horror director Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep).
It’s set in the present day and revolves around ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher, who have built their company Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege and power.
The eight-episode series features a number of gory and gruesome deaths as each member of the Usher family is killed off in mysterious fashion.
It’s going down a treat with viewers and critics though, with the series top of Netflix’s viewing charts and currently holding an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 90 per cent.
And whilst it seems obvious to say that the series is not for the faint-hearted, there is one particular scene from the show that seems to have even left many fans shell shocked.
Episode 4 of The Fall of the House of Usher is called ‘The Black Cat’ and focuses on the death of Leo Usher (Rahul Kohli), Roderick’s third child to die.
Roderick is a lazy, drug-taking individual, but after coming into contact with the demon who is terrorising his family, he is led to believe that he has murdered his partner Julius’ cat, Pluto.
So he goes to a a local animal shelter to pick up a look-alike cat, but the feline starts leaving rat and pigeon carcasses around the house for Leo to find.
Without revealing too much, the strange and grisly goings-on continue, but one scene involving a cat mutilation was too much for some viewers, who urged other Netflix users to proceed with caution when going into episode 4.
One person wrote: “This is the only thing I’ll say about The Fall of the House of Usher so far, but what does Mike Flanagan have against cats, my guy, stop it.
A second added: “If u have a severe reaction to cat abvse/cat d3ath/lots of g0ry imagery of cats dont watch House of Usher btw.”
While a third remarked: “The Fall of the House of Usher was so freaking good. (minus the cat mutilation).”
And someone else said: “I’m watching fall of the house of usher and loving all the queer people but Mike Flanagan always has to f***in do something to a cat doesn’t he.”
But fear not cat-lovers – Flanagan himself has reassured viewers that Pluto didn’t actually die in the series, and was actually just Leo hallucinating.
Writing on X, the show creator said: “Okay. So… ‘The Black Cat’ was written by Edgar Allan Poe. In HIS version, a cat is killed.
“In MY version, the cat is… (spoilers) … in MY version, the killing of the cat is revealed to be a hallucination. In MY version, the cat is alive and well. So who hates cats?”
He added that the cat that appears at the end of the episode is in fact Leo’s original cat, and not the replacement from the shelter.
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