Two years after The Haunting of Hill House debuted, the eagerness for Mike Flanagan‘s Netflix anthology sequence hasn’t waned, as viewers proceed to revisit the devastating ghost story and theorize about what horrors the followup, The Haunting of Bly Manor, may maintain. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that even essentially the most studied Hill Home fan may have predicted what Bly Manor (out Friday, Oct. 9) would develop into.
Based mostly on the work of Victorian creator Henry James, The Haunting of Bly Manor follows Dani Clayton (Victoria Pedretti), a spirited American operating from a private tragedy, who takes an au pair job in 1987 at a distant British property taking care of two younger orphans, Miles (Benjamin Ainsworth) and Flora (Amelie Smith). The present’s premise is taken straight from James’ beloved gothic horror The Turn of the Screw — which follows a governess fixated on saving her wards’ souls from two sinister ghosts — however the story quickly goes in sudden instructions as Flanagan pulls inspiration from a number of of James’ different tales, together with The Jolly Nook, a story of a person who’s haunted by his personal doppelgänger, The Romance of Sure Outdated Garments, which particulars a bitter rivalry between sisters that ends in an act of ghostly vengeance, and The Nice Good Place, a fable a couple of famed author who finds refuge from actuality in a dream.
For the solid, Bly Manor pulls closely from the anthology’s established troupe of actors — together with Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Henry Thomas, Kate Siegel, and Katie Parker. Jackson-Cohen is a specific standout this season as Peter Quint, an worker of Bly’s absent proprietor Henry Wingrave (Thomas). One of many characters lifted straight from Flip of the Screw, Peter sows discord within the manor, poisoning all he touches in a magnetic efficiency from Jackson-Cohen that may be a far cry from the susceptible Luke Crain in The Haunting’s freshmen outing. This isn’t the one occasion during which it appears Flanagan purposefully gave a returning actor a job wholly completely different from what they did in Hill Home, however nobody meets the event fairly like Jackson-Cohen does. (The season additionally sees a number of of those actors doing accents, a problem that will get combined, and in some instances inexplicable, outcomes.)
Oliver Jackson-Cohen, The Haunting of Bly Manor
Along with these returning gamers, Bly Manor additionally welcomes a number of newcomers to the franchise. The infectiously charming Rahul Kohli and Amelia Eve tackle unique roles as Bly’s lovably corny prepare dinner, Owen, and the swaggering groundskeeper, Jamie, respectively. T’Nia Miller performs the devoted housekeeper, Hannah Grose, whereas Tahirah Sharif embodies the kind-hearted earlier au pair, Rebecca Jessel, each figures from Flip of the Screw who’re given refreshing depth and nuance within the sequence.
Flanagan blends James’ tales in ingenious methods, however followers who had been hoping to see their favourite grim twists from The Flip of the Screw dropped at display could discover themselves mourning the modifications if they do not give themselves over to the delight of subverted expectations. The identical is true for followers of Hill Home, who will not discover in Bly Manor the soul-curdling horror that shattered hearts and bent minds within the anthology’s first go-round. That is as a result of, whereas atmospheric, Bly Manor delivers few really piercing scares. This season cannot match the visceral, haunting imagery of Hill Home, and even the psychological suspense of Flip of the Screw (for that, you are higher off watching The Innocents or The Others). What Bly Manor succeeds at, although, is constructing a way of grievous dread, exploring the methods during which we ship ourselves to a doomed destiny and make selections that observe us even into demise. Whereas the pensively tragic season is probably not what many count on going into Bly Manor, Flanagan nurtures this dread with tender care all through the 9 episodes, constructing a narrative about love and heartbreak during which ghosts are as a lot embodiments of romance as obstacles to it.
5 Methods The Haunting of Bly Manor Will Be Completely different From Hill Home
As Steven Crain (Michiel Huisman) stated in Hill Home, a ghost is a want. This stays true in Bly Manor, however the needs on this story are all pushed by the identical factor: love and longing. Whereas society typically expects folks to recover from or transfer on from a painful loss, whether or not that be a demise or a breakup, the characters in Bly Manor embrace and cling to those absences, and every of the present’s central romances examines a distinct method this want manifests. For some, this impulse leads them down a darkish path, the place love mutates into compulsion or rage. However Bly Manor‘s ghostly world additionally captures the wonder in making an attempt to take care of a connection to those that’ve been misplaced. Then there may be the hazard of those that have by no means skilled love in any respect, however have solely mistaken it for possession. The present powerfully particulars how this poisonous objectification can distort the sharpest minds and exploit essentially the most empathetic souls.
Victoria Pedretti, The Haunting of Bly Manor
All through all of it is a core solid of resilient ladies navigating a world that is not designed to acknowledge their abilities, however who discover methods to remake actuality to suit their imaginative and prescient fairly than bending to the world’s. As a lot as Bly Manor is about romance, it is also how an individual’s identification could be made or unmade, however by no means mounted — not even in demise. The paranormal conditions the characters are thrust into (the main points of which we cannot spoil right here) encourage a number of of them to interact in a deeply melancholy self-evaluation. By this introspection, they arrive to know the alternatives which have outlined them up till that time and are given the chance to reframe their tales. Not everybody welcomes this reward (and for some, it feels extra like a curse), however Bly Manor takes pains to know the harm that drives somebody to maintain dangerous cycles alive as a lot because it does the hope that conjures up somebody to discover a higher method ahead.
Whereas Bly Manor is a gorgeous story about damaged hearts and religion within the face of uncertainty, it does lose a few of the calculated ingenuity that made James’ finest ghost tales sing. “Make him assume the evil, make him assume it for himself, and you’re launched from weak specs,” James wrote within the preface to The Flip of the Screw. However right here, too many mysteries are solved, leaving little room for the creativeness to plan horrors constructed from audiences’ personal fears.
Everything to Know about The Haunting of Bly Manor
There’s a lot potential within the works of Henry James that impressed this season — notably in these tales which have by no means earlier than been tailored for display — and sadly this bar is just not all the time met in Bly Manor, which might have been served higher with a tighter focus. Whereas the Crains of Hill Home had been all dealing with a shared supply of trauma, the characters in Bly Manor are given distinctive struggles, which often intersect however are largely battles every should face on their very own. However whereas James by no means wasted a sentence, Bly Manor struggles to juggle its numerous arcs in efficient and environment friendly methods, resulting in a number of disparate storylines whose seams by no means fairly fuse collectively. Consequently, the layers of trauma and character-driven horror are thinner than in Hill Home, and the present struggles to take care of momentum early on, getting caught in repetitive cycles till a standout second will get the sequence again on observe. However for many who proceed on, their persistence shall be rewarded within the again half of the season, which builds fascinating momentum in the direction of the present’s emotionally satisfying conclusion.
T’Nia Miller, The Haunting of Bly Manor
Regardless of some struggles, there are sufficient touching moments of pathos and deeply disquieting turns in Bly Manor that remind you ways nice Flanagan could be when he is at his finest, and lots of of those focus on T’Nia Miller’s Hannah Grose. Nobody brings as a lot humanity to the sequence as Miller, who nestles into your psyche as she portrays a self-determined girl who goes to nice lengths to defend herself from the pains of life, however who, within the course of, additionally shields herself from a lot extra. Though Dani is undeniably the present’s heroine and Pedretti delivers a formidable and wrenching efficiency of her personal, it is Hannah who captures the center and thoughts, and whose journey lingers lengthy after the season ends.
The Haunting of Bly Manor is an entertaining and evocative followup to Hill Home, regardless of by no means fairly reaching the heights of its predecessor. And finally, the most important impediment to the present is the extremely excessive expectations most viewers can have for it — ones that might simply morph into disappointment, not as a result of the season is not compelling, however just because it is so totally completely different from the primary. The Haunting of Bly Manor is not as darkish and desolating as Hill Home, neither is it as ambiguously unsettling as The Flip of the Screw. Bly Manor is a love story above all else, and if followers can shed their preconceptions and permit Bly Manor to be simply what it’s, they will discover lots of worth: a moody story, nice performances, tragic romances, and a reminder of how fortunate we’re to search out love on this world the place nothing — not the previous, and positively not the longer term — are ever assured.
TV Information score: 3.5/5
The Haunting of Bly Manor premieres Friday, Oct. 9 on Netflix.