The Big Picture
- Carla Gugino delivers intense performances in horror projects, portraying characters who face personal demons and challenging situations.
- In Gerald's Game, Gugino's character fights for survival after being handcuffed in an isolated lake house, showcasing her ability to convey anguish and strength.
- Gugino's voice becomes a powerful tool in The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, adding depth and emotion to her roles as a narrator and a judge delivering a sentencing.
A mother who can’t escape a haunted house. A widow who is forced to confront her inner demons. A wedding guest who has seen her share of ghosts. These characters are not one of the same, except for the actress that portrays them, which is the transformative and beguiling Carla Gugino. While director Mike Flanagan has worked with many of the same actors, the best collaborations are the roles Gugino takes on in his many horror projects. From The Haunting adaptations on Netflix to The Fall of the House of Usher, the actress is nothing like the spy mama from the B-movie action spectacles of the Spy Kidstrilogy. There is a lot of darkness, and she is frequently challenged with what her performances require. There can never be too much of Carla Gugino, whether you root for her or fear her.
The Fall of the House of Usher
TV-MADramaHorror710
Siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built a pharmaceutical company into an empire of wealth, privilege and power; however, secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying.
- Release Date
- October 12, 2023
- Creator
- Mike Flanagan
- Cast
- Carla Gugino , Willa Fitzgerald , Mary McDonnell , Kate Siegel
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Seasons
- 1
- Studio
- Netflix
- Production Company
- Intrepid Pictures
‘Gerald’s Game’ Has Carla Gugino Deliver an Intense Performance as She Fights to Survive
In 2015, the actress was outrunning earthquakes and tsunami waves in San Andreas, and a few years later, she was in a more intimate but just as dangerous scenario in Gerald’s Game. A getaway to spice up a dying marriage leads to one spouse's death and the other being confined in a failed role play. Jessie (Gugino) is left handcuffed in an isolated lake house with no escape in sight after her older husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) drops dead from an ill-timed heart attack. Although there are flashbacks and hallucinatory figures to round out the cast, Carla Gugino is why it works. She plays the trapped Jessie in a constant state of anguish, as personal demons erupt from the deep recesses of her mind, pushing herself through excruciating pain to be free, with no one else coming to her rescue.
The movie is based on the Stephen King novel once thought to be unfilmable, Flanagan proved that to be wrong, and having Gugino as his star turned this into a claustrophobic thriller. A voiceover at the end will be another tool Gugino can use in later performances but for most of the movie, she talks to figures from her mind that either help or try to break her down. Gugino plays Jessie’s assertive doppelgänger who demands she stay alive while mocking the fellow hallucination of Gerald. The degloving sequence in the movie’s finale can’t rely on grisly special effects, it needs that guttural scream of survival that Gugino lets out. This is a woman who is forced to realize if she has the will to survive, and she fights through a hell that is made up of the past and present to realize she very much does. Impressively, Gugino never plays the same kind of role twice in Flanagan’s projects. Her next Mike Flanagan character suffers from a destructive breakdown that there is no return from.
Olivia Crain Is Manipulated by Supernatural Horror in 'The Haunting of Hill House'
In The Haunting of Hill House, the actress plays a tragic monster who ends up a grave threat to her family. It hurts to watch the decline of Olivia Crain, who has a wholesome marriage to her husband Hugh (Henry Thomas), where they openly talk about how they could be better parents. This openness extends to how she cares for their young kids. In one sweet moment, she gifts Theo (Mckenna Grace) her first pair of gloves to help with the “sensitive” gifts her daughter has inherited, ensuring this young Crain feels loved and respected. Migraines affect the mother though, which get severe in this house where ghosts reside. That Olivia truly wants to be a good mother is what makes her downfall the more brutal to watch. The warmth of the Crain matriarch in life is turned into bait when she becomes a ghost.
In times of stress for her character, Gugino muffles the sobs, her mouth closed tight to try to swallow them down. Her eyes get glassy as tears collect, but they don’t stream down her cheeks, or she doesn’t blink, as if trying so hard to hold her emotions in check. But this struggle can’t be defeated. Unlike Jessie in Gerald’s Game who howls and sobs which ends up liberating as it lets her release pent-up rage and despair, Olivia is consumed by the evil and manipulation of Hill House. It touches on her fears of seeing her children be pummeled by the darkness out in the world, “screaming meemies,” and all. Killing them is how she can keep them safe. When she is unable to, she kills herself, imprisoning herself within the walls. The image of the ghost Olivia beckoning adult Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) in while she stands at the top of the stairs is creepy for the uncanniness. A breeze surrounds her, blowing into her velvet red robe and hair. She’s beautiful and graceful, distracting her son from seeing the black mold and overgrown nature invading the abandoned house. She appears stuck in slow motion, not unlike the strange movements of a spirit in Pulse. While Olivia Crain succumbs to her worst fears, Gugino's next Flanagan character does indeed escape a haunted estate.
In ‘Bly Manor’ and ‘Midnight Mass,’ Carla Gugino's Voice Is Her Greatest Asset
Back in Gerald’s Game, Jessie writes a letter to her younger self and what she writes down is heard in narration spoken by the actress. There is a sadness heard within the hard work that she has to continue to better herself, but she will not stop. For The Haunting of Bly Manor, the Storyteller is another kind of challenge for Gugino, which emphasizes her as a narrator. From the first episode, it’s obvious there is more than meets the eye to the silver-haired woman who arrives late to a wedding rehearsal. “To truly love another person, is to accept that the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them,” is said for a toast and when the camera finds the Storyteller’s face, it catches a smile that flattens. This woman understands the consequences of falling in love too well, it isn’t until the final episode that audiences understand just how much. Why should a wedding party drop everything to sip wine and listen to a ghost story from an apparent stranger? Well, that is the sheer power of Carla Gugino.
In Bly Manor’s purely gothic horror entry, the tragedy of the Lady in the Lake (Kate Siegel) is told by the Storyteller, where there is minimal dialogue and color stripped away for a black-and-white purgatory. In Gugino’s soft-spoken voice, she describes the Lady’s plight where she does not rest in peace, “She would sleep. She would wake. She would walk.” In the finale, the Storyteller’s identity is revealed to be an older version of Jamie (Amelia Eve), grieving the loss of Dani (Victoria Pedretti), their romance cut short years prior by the Lady in the Lake. The story older Jamie has been narrating for this installment of The Haunting might have violent ghosts, but it’s also a love story. By telling it, she gets to keep the memories of Dani alive.
This Mike Flanagan Horror Movie Makes for the Perfect Double Feature With ‘You’re Next'
This horror pairing is a perfect portrayal of the genre’s fiercest final girls.There is another focus on her voice in Midnight Mass (2021) for what is an off-screen cameo early in the first episode. She plays the judge who sentences Riley (Zach Gilford), which shows how his drunk driving has forever disrupted many lives with no way to forget and a difficult struggle to forgive. The camera is framed on Riley, essentially placing audiences into what is the POV of the Judge. There is no harshness to how Gugino’s voice swiftly delivers Riley’s sentencing, but there is a curtness. He killed someone due to a bad choice, and he must face the reality of that. As if Mike Flanagan has been hearing a collective demand, the actress returns to a bigger role with the director’s newest project.
‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Has Carla Gugino as an Edgar Allan Poe-Themed Shape-shifter
In The Fall of the House of Usher, the roles are reversed from Gerald’s Game, letting Gugino be a spectral menace and Bruce Greenwood be the one that is haunted. Verna is an entity of no confirmed origins but with hints of an existence that goes far back centuries. Verna has no ill will against mortals, she is fascinated by them and what they will do if allowed to live out their dreams. Her interest is never quenched, she grants soon-to-be influential figures a deal they crave and signs it just as simple, such as sharing a glass of expensive cognac, stored for a large amount of time that is inconsequential to Verna, but crucial to the people who agree to her terms. In the New Year’s bar chat with Roderick (Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell), Verna tells the Usher siblings, “What’s more loving? Forty, fifty years of a gilded life? Or 70, 80 years of anxiety, tribulation, and heartache?” This honest deal with the devil is tempting, knowing the terrible upbringing of the siblings, but Verna doesn’t hide the brutality to the offer either.
She tells them, “When that curtain falls, everyone takes a bow together.” Verna or "the raven" are one of the same, an all-seeing creature with ancient origins. She is a shape-shifter, wearing a bell collar as an animal shelter worker and becoming feral when she slowly transforms into a violent chimp. When she hunts down Camille (Siegel), shadows conceal the features of Verna that she uses to be seductive. Gone are her smile and eyes that can make characters feel special when they lock onto them. But Verna is capable of mercy too, offering it to victims that she believes shouldn’t have to suffer. Just not for Freddie (Henry Thomas), because even Verna has her limits. He grabs the pliers – so she takes care of him as she sees fit, but still talking and laying next to his paralyzed body, never losing her strange gentleness. When every Usher is buried, she mourns them.
Carla Gugino Creates Something New With 'The Fall of the House of Usher'
Verna is surely Gugino’s most ambiguous role, pulling strengths from her other performances while creating something new. Other than the darkness and drama, she keeps viewers captivated with what her next appearance will bring. There will definitely be another soul-shattering, thought-provoking monologue somewhere for her to deliver. There is a tenderness that she can portray, from her words or her characters’ actions, that invites you to trust her. So, when this is twisted in (usually) paranormal ways, the trust is corrupted. There is no telling what is next for her when Mike Flanagan returns with a new horror project; not when Jessie, Olivia, the Storyteller, the Judge, and now Verna are the many faces of Carla Gugino.
The Fall of the House of Usher is currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S.
