Ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth.
This tv show contains 102 potentially triggering events.
What is it with Mike Flanagan and the dead cats?! Midnight Mass and Fall of the House of Usher would be fine without them. I love animals deeply and animal cruelty is the deciding factor in whether or not I watch a movie or series.
The show revolves around the dysfunctional relationship between a parent and his family, whose origin story involves similarly being abandoned by his own father. (ep 1)
Ep. 1 verbally abusive religious mother & abusive father.
Ep 1 mother chokes her son against a wall at one point.
Roderick Usher, main character of thr story, frequently insults and verbally berates his children.
Women are violently murdered and occasionally physically and psychologically tortured but I wouldn’t say any of these events were sexualized or shown purely for shock value. And there’s no imbalance when it comes to how much violence is inflicted upon the woman characters versus the non-woman characters.
There is a situation in the show where an older pharmaceutical magnate is married to a much younger woman, a former heroin addict, because her high tolerance for opioids supposedly “proves” the “safety” of the pill he invented, and he manipulates her into taking a ridiculously high dosage of the medication daily. While this is absolutely horrific exploitation of a vulnerable person for “optics,” I don’t think it’s quite the same thing as “brutalized for spectacle” as described in this category (violence against women shown for shock value). But it could tie into this trigger, and there isn’t yet a more specific category for exploitation and human trafficking, so, worth a mention.
Roderick current wife Juno is lead on to believe that the controversial drug she is taking is effective and that she should keep taking it, and that it IS working, and no there are no side effects.
Not on screen but 9 ish minutes into episode 1, William Longfelloq says that "children are never too tender to be whipped, the more you beat them the more tender they become" or something like that. Very big trigger warning.
Monkey dies in operating procedure
Monkey is mentioned to have been killed in dialogue after it killed someone
A cat leaves brutalized animals around - under a pillow in a sex scene, in a slipper shortly after.
Napoleon wakes up from being black out drunk and his hands are covered in blood, he doesn't notice this until he sees blood stains on orange juice. He then sees a brutalized cat killed with a knife.
There is a HORRIFIC animal abuse scene in the episode "the black cat" a cat is seen as haunting / tormenting him. It's alluded to that the cat was a vision all along, and has actually never been there.
*** mega trigger warning for specifics below:***
a character grabs a cat that was attacking him by the face and literally crushes it's face until one of its eyeballs pops out - we see the dangling eyeball afterwards.
(this was very rough for my wife to watch, so be warned.)
Cat wins in the end though :)
Monkeys/chimps are used as lab animals and tested on in surgical procedures, in several episodes (beginning with ep01) and discussed throughout. They seem to be CGId in, though.
Dead chimp in the second episode, dead cat in the third (37min in) and a dead rat (25min in) in the fourth along with dead mice and doves at the end of the episode (45min in).
E3: Near the end of E3, there are chimps that have been locked in cages and had horrible experiments done on them. They seem more enraged than sad about it, but I feel like the suffering of animals probably ties into this trigger.
E4: A cat sorta mews at his dead owner in E4, it could be read as sad. Nothing super obvious or overt.
No rabbits are harmed.
very much a stretch, but drugs and experimental surgeries are tested on animals, mainly chimps are shown. Could have been rabbits, but nothing is mentioned.
As of episode 4/5 none save for the orgy filming.
there is a large age gap between an older man whose developed specialized pain killers and a younger woman. The woman is shown to want to sexually please him, but is also in an uncomfortable power dynamic with him, and him wanting to keep her on his drug as proof it works.
I haven't seen this mentioned, but one character Camille has two agents who also act as her sexual servants. There is a scene in episode 4/5 where they come in, she expects them to have sex with her, and they say that won't be happening anymore.
There is a VERY uncomfortable scene where she threatens their livelihoods, saying she can sue them, and says they signed forms, and pressures them to keep having sec with her. Nothing physical is done, but there is a lot of swearing and threats, and it's all very uncomfortable. They end up gerting away from her safely though.
in episode two, someone holds a fork to another person's throat and describes the aftermath if they were to do so. nothing happens but it might conjure some unpleasant visuals
There is a scene where under the influence of cocaine and in desperation to unlock a phone, Frederick Usher removes the nose oxygen tube from his wife who is in a coma in intensive care on life support, so he can uncover her face. You hear her struggling to breathe for around a minute and its very uncomfortable
An entire warehouse of people are melted to death with some kind of acid or other corrosive substance. Roderick mentions that it's highly corrosive a medical byproduct of a "less than legal development process"
Several people black out on drugs both voluntarily and involuntarily taken. One woman may have passed out from pain or die, it is unclear as she gets up again but it’s a ghost show so idk
One of the characters is shown after a fall with an arm at a strange angle and another lands on their head after a short fall and it is implied their neck has broken
No seizures but lots of twitching especially after characters get hit on the head. In the tell tale heart episode there is a scene that could be triggering where a character gets hit on the head , twitches, tries to call out for help, and has rapid eye movement.
Chimps and cats die but I wouldn’t really call them “characters.” All the deaths are human or animal, no non-human people (aliens, elves, anthropomorphic animals, etc.) even exist, let alone die. There’s only one non-human sentient entity in the series and they do not die.
In addition to an overdose shown on screen in episode 7, there is explicit discussion of overdoses throughout the series, with the most disturbing discussion/visuals about opiod overdose taking place near the beginning of episode 8.
There is one scene where a man kisses a woman at a party despite being married.
One of the siblings is shown cheating on their partner and they have to hide the person on a balcony as their partner returns home early
There are multiple instances of a couple having an argument about alleged cheating but none of them have cheated on each other.
Episode 1: 51:58 As he gets into the car there will be an eerie looking Jester pouched on the seat, staring. No gore. Loud sounds. Episode 2: 20:32 Loud sudden sound with no build up. The jump scare is a face with gore. Episode 3: 34:56 Loud sudden sound. Jump scare is a face, with gore.
Taking one for the team and watching now! Will update as I do
E1: MENTION ONLY - character says they t* u* in their mouth but not seriously E2: MENTION ONLY - character says v* in response to something they think is gross E3: SAFE E4: SAFE E5: SAFE E6: SAFE E7: At the end of the episode, a man does cough out a bit of white foam, it's not very much and mostly looks like foamy spit, not v* like at all. It happens after a hand touches his face and is very quick. The caption say retching after but it sounds more like very brief g*gging/throat gurgling. E8: At the beginning of the episode, it continues from the last so you see the tiny puddle of white foam next to him
Someone is attacked and killed by a chimpanzee. They appear throughout the series with a mangled face that looks like part of it may have been eaten off.
All of the injuries involve really disgusting audio gore, especially the deaths at the end of episode 2 and in the beginning of episode 3 when those deaths are investigated
Some of the Ushers procure ancient artifacts (such as ancient Egyptian mummification tools) for their personal collections, which might tie into this trigger. In the last episode, it’s implied some of these items are destroyed when the building is destroyed. It’s not really focused on at all, though.
As far as I've got into it, no. But someone dies of a seemingly undisclosed terminal illness in Ep 1 that reminded me a lot of it as someone that witnessed someone die of Cancer.
I’d argue that the sucide isn’t self harm. It’s suicide, which is completely different. She harms herself yes, but it’s not a coping method and it’s not in any way a form of NSSI. This trigger is for NSSI, not sucide and not self-destructive behavior. The sucide doesn’t have any cutting into the arms or legs, it’s stabbing into the chest. Incorrect answers like these make it hard to find safe shows.
Episode 5 has a scene where a character considers different methods of suicide and makes a few attempts, one of which is depicted (but is just an illusion). He also refers to himself as "cowardly" for not actually doing it, which might be particularly triggering.
A woman who is hallucinating has a meltdown on stage. She screams and curses at things that aren't there and it ultimately ends with her throwing a microphone stand that hits another character in the head.
No, these words are not spoken, however Roderick Usher has a scene where he tries to goad himself into suicide and contemplates it with pills, a ancient Egyptian blade, and breaking a window and falling off a building; you see him try to attempt these, but cannot commit and calls himself a coward.
Lightning flashing in the first and final episode (though final is much less intense)
The second episode also has slow rave light pulses. Not so much that it's an eyestrain to a non photosensitive person but enough that I feel it should be warned about.
in a very loose sense? the young wife of an older man with several (adult) children is hated by almost all of his kids. at one point in episode four she's referred to as "it" by one of the (adult) children, if that would make anyone uncomfortable.
A woman holds her religion so closely that she suffers pain for weeks. Any time her children ask her to call a doctor she says that her body is a temple of god and she won’t pollute it
Verna is definitely nonhuman and very old, but she’s not explicitly stated to be a demon.
She seems to try to warn most of the cast away from the dangerous situations they find themselves in, and only gets involved in Frederick’s passing directly because she disapproves of the way he’s abused his wife. She also takes no pleasure in Lenore’s death, and goes out of her way to make it as peaceful and gentle as she can.
I’d say she seems more like a personification of Death or Karma/Fate than a demon. (Edit: Carla Gugino has confirmed this via a Netflix Geeked interview.)
I don’t know why the other person said there isn’t full frontal, there’s a lot of full frontal nudity. Episode 2 has it within the first few minutes and continues throughout. Full on general is, just as a heads up.
The two sibling characters are twins who are essentially connected/two halves of a whole. It feels uncomfortable due to the lack of boundaries (i.e. sleeping in the same bed as teenagers) seeing as the show is set in modern times, but it stems from the original Edgar Allan Poe poem where the twins are connected. They are extensions of each other and their relationship is NOT sexual in any way shape or form. It definitely feels like they're emotionally too close for comfort but it makes sense when you start to see that they are pretty much a metaphor for one person's soul split into two bodies.
IIRC, Leo is briefly teased/chastised for being emotional about Prospero’s death in E3. It’s not really about his gender though, more about the dynamics of the family, who collectively view genuine emotions as a weakness that is unproductive.
Roderick falls to the ground at the very end of S01e01 after coming out of the church, he lies there with blood coming out of his nose, looks like it could possibly be a haemorrhagic stroke
This is a very bloody, gory show and it's practically unavoidable. All the deaths are gruesome and there's also lots of animal abuse and death, also graphic. Honestly if you're sensitive to this, I'd recommend skipping the series.