12 characters die in 'Fall of the House of Usher'. Here's why, and how

Warning: This story contains spoilers for “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Blood is shed, again and again, in the new Netflix horror show "The Fall of the House of Usher," as each member of the wealthy and corrupt Usher family inevitably meets their unfortunate fate.

Inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, the eight-episode season released Oct. 12 follows twin siblings Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell) as they make a deal with the devil. In exchange for endless wealth, their offspring will only live as long as they do.

The story unfolds through flashbacks as Roderick recounts the deaths of his children to investigator Auguste "Auggie" Dupin (Carl Lumbly.

Here's why the Usher family has such an unusually high body count, and more about the curse that condemned them.

Eliza Usher

Roderick and Madeline's mother, Eliza (Annabel Gish), dies of an unspecified illness in the show's first episode.

The twins bury her, thinking she's dead ... but she's not. Using the last of her strength, she crawls out of her coffin and kills the twins' father, Fortunato CEO William Longfellow (Robert Longstreet). She collapses and dies.

Annabel Lee

For Roderick's first wife, Annabel Lee, his windfall is her downfall. She loses custody of their children Frederick and Tamerlane, who are lured away by their father's money. Annabel takes her own life. Roderick goes on to father more children with other women.

Prospero Usher

Roderick and Madeline Usher offer to invest in each of the Usher children's business ideas.

Propsero Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota), the youngest of the six Usher kids, proposes an exclusive pop-up club. They brush off the idea of frivolous. Prospero plows forward, hosting a blowout party in the show's second episode, "The Masque of the Red Death."

The elite gathering, which his sister-in-law Morelle (Crystal Balint) secretly attends, takes place at an old and unoccupied family building transformed into his eponymous club.

The youngest Usher encourages partygoers to wear masks and partake in drugs and group orgies, which he captures on film to later use as blackmail. However, he doesn't get the chance to see his plan through fruition.

At this point, a mysterious woman dressed in a skeleton mask and red cape is introduced: Verna, who winds up playing a role in the death of all Usher family members.

She seductively lures Prospero into a bedroom. He asks who she is. Verna responds, "Consequence, and tonight is consequential."

After a brief conversation in which Prospero suggests the two sleep together, Verna slips away back into the packed crowd.

Finally, the sprinkler system goes off, meant to liven up the dance floor. But what Prospero thought was water is actually deadly acid from Fortunato Pharmaceuticals.

As over 70 bodies — some lifeless, others hardly surviving — lay on the ground of the makeshift club, Verna walks over to Prospero's body and places her chilling mask over his face.

Camille L’Espanaye

Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel) digs up intelligence on each of her siblings after Dupin hints at a mole in the family.

Through her research, Camille Usher finds that sister Victorine LaFourcade (T'Nia Miller) has been falsifying results from trials of her cardiac devices, which she's testing on chimpanzees.

Her methods are gruesome: Victorine operates on one chimp, then switches out the body if the procedure doesn't go as planned. She cuts up the chimps' bodies and throws them away.

To confirm the information, Camille travels to the animal laboratory in Episode Three, "Murder in the Rue Morgue."

Threatening her way past Verna, who is posing as a nighttime security guard, Camille heads back to a room filled with cages and begins taking incriminating photographs of the primates.

Suddenly, Verna bursts in. Jumping up onto a medal table, Verna becomes a chimp and fatally attacks Camille, who is found the next morning.

Napoleon Usher

Napoleon Usher (Rahul Kohli) dies in Episode Four, "The Black Cat," which has an on-the-nose title.

Napoleon isn't a fan of his partner's black cat. After blacking out at a party, Napoleon wakes up with blood all over his hands and body. He looks over and finds the cat has been stabbed to death — and Napoleon assumes he was the culprit.

After disposing of the cat's body, Napoleon goes to a pet rescue center, where Verna is posing as an employee. She gives him a replacement cat. An evil cat.

Over the following days, the increasingly violent cat drives Napoleon mad. Then, Verna appears to play mind tricks of her own.

Reaching a breaking point, Napoleon starts tearing down his apartment walls and chases the cat off the balcony, ultimately falling to his death.

Victorine LaFourcade

Victorine LaFourcade decides to move from doing medical tests of her heart device on chimps to doing tests on people.

Verna acts as a potential patient. Victorine convinces her to participate in the trial for her cardiac contraption.

Victorine's partner and the trial's lead doctor, Alessandro (Paola Nuñez), is furious at the idea of moving from primate to human. They have a massive argument, which ends in Victorine throwing a bookend at her. The blow is fatal.

From then on, Victorine can hardly focus. A clicking noise relentlessly pursues her, as what happens in Poe's short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the title of this episode.

Roderick arrives to her apartment and hears the clicking, too. Looking for the source of the clicking, he finds a horrific secret: Alessandra is dead, with the controversial cardiac device strapped around her heart.

Understanding what she's done, Victorine takes a knife and stabs herself in the abdomen and dies.

Tamerlane Usher

Tamerlane Usher first meets Verna when she poses as the sex worker she and her husband hired.

Over the course of subsequent weeks, Verna pops up in random locations with her husband, which makes Tamerlane question his loyalty. Tamerlane is also stressed over the opening of her lifestyle brand, Goldbug. Following a ruthless argument, Tamerlane's husband leaves her just days before the launch.

Standing on the stage before an audience, she sees Verna. But what really sends Tamerlane over the edge of sanity is seeing her sex tape play on the screen behind her (though no one appears to be able to see this).

As Madeline hunts down Verna in the aftermath, Tamerlane makes a grand escape. Once back at her home, she smashes every mirror she looks in.

In her final act, she breaks a giant mirror above her bed and is fatally pierced with glass shards.

Frederick Usher

Verna says she chooses to murder Frederick in the most brutal way possible, she explains during Episode Seven, "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Ever since his wife was found at Prospero's party, Frederick has been taking revenge on her perceived infidelity. He paralyzes her using medication and uses pliers to remove her teeth.

He's killed with a taste of his own medicine.

The death happens after Frederick's father tasks him with demolishing Prospero's destroyed club, in case it becomes a crime scene. He brings some of the medication to use recreationally — and miscalculates the dose, thanks to Verna.

He collapses to the ground, unable to move. A giant pendulum swings closer and closer to Frederick, eventually landing at his waist. It slowly kills him. The building then collapses and his body is left in the rubble.

Rufus Griswold

The death of Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco), the head of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals just prior to the Usher reign, comes in the form of a flashback during episode eight, "The Raven."

After defending the company in a legal battle against the state, Roderick attends a New Year's Eve costume party for Fortunato with Madeline. When the two arrive at the venue, Griswold, dressed as a joker, praises Roderick and names him the next in line for leader of the company.

The Usher siblings capitalize on the celebration and toast with Griswold — with poisoned wine. He doesn't feel the effects until after Madeline seductively lures him into the basement.

Suddenly, Griswold collapses to the ground unconscious. He wakens to find himself chained to the wall with Roderick and Madeline building up bricks in front of him, burying him alive.

After verbally tormenting him while stacking the wall, Madeline puts a final brick in front of his face that reads, "You are so small," and puts his joker mask back on his head, leaving him for dead.

Lenore Usher

Roderick's most emotional loss in the show is his granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran).

After making sure her grandfather is settled in for bed, Lenore says she thinks they should let Fortunato Pharmaceuticals go and start over. Planning to stay the night, Lenore heads into the guest room, only to find Verna sitting on the bed.

Verna tells the girl that there are many parts of her job that bring her joy, but this isn't one of them.

She tells Lenore that she saved her mom, Morelle, from her dad — but she's doomed like the rest of her blood relatives. Verna then places a hand over Lenore's head and the girl peacefully falls onto the bed to her death.

Madeline and Roderick Usher

As the last two left standing in the family, Roderick and Madeline Usher share a drink in the basement of their childhood home and await what is a certain death.

After reminiscing on their rise to power, Madeline Usher suddenly goes limp from the poisoned drink her brother made her.

Roderick apologizes to his sister and brings her to a table where he lays her down and removes her eyes, replacing them with blue stones that he says royal ancient Egyptians used during mummification.

This isn't enough to kill Madeline.

Roderick and the investigator become attuned to noises coming from the basement, which can only mean one thing: Madeline is alive. Suddenly, Madeline, covered with blood and with blue stones for her eyes, bursts through the door and screams. She walks over to her brother and strangles him to death, then dies herself.

Her death mimics her mother's.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com