On October 9th of this year, the 2nd installment of The Haunting, following The Haunting of Hill House; came out on Netflix.
The show follows the same set-up as Hill House did. Bly Manor is also a retelling of a famous novel, this time it is loosely based off of the 1898 novella, The Turning of the Screw, by Henry James. (Wikipedia).
As the name may entail, this is not a show for the faint of hearts. It is the story of an American woman in London, who is hired to look after a pair of children who lost their parents in the countryside of England in the achingly beautiful Bly Manor.
What the main character Dani (Victoria Pedretti) does not know though, is that Bly is home to many others besides the two children: mischievous Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and the darling Flora (Amelia Bea Smith) along with the home’s staff: the “punny” chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), the stern yet sweet housekeeper Hannah (T’Nia Miller) and the lovable gruff gardener, Jamie (Amelia Eve).
Besides this charming cast, Bly Manor is home to the ghosts who were claimed by the lady of the lake; a spirt that has been haunting the home for centuries, and the home acts as a purgatory as some sorts. This is all I am going to give away about the plot though, no more spoilers!
Like the show’s processor program, Hill House the show’s creator Mike Flannegan makes use of the same actors for the show’s cast. This includes the return of stars like Victoria Pedretti as the American nanny, Dani, Henry Thomas as the children’s uncle Henry Wingrave; and Oliver Jackson-Cohen as the show’s handsome yet misunderstood villain, Peter Quint.
I was quite amused with the 9 episodes the show entails. Besides being a ghost story, the show is also a love story about the nanny and the gardener, and their beautiful yet tragic life together. By the end of the last episode I was in tears instead of being scared.
There are your usual twists and turns that came with …Hill House as well. And, like …Hill House, the 5th episode of the show is the most shocking, and answers questions you did not even know you had.
Overall, I would rate this show an 8.5 out of 10, with points off due to the slow buildup of the first couple of episodes. But, like a lot of shows it gets better with each episode. I would recommend!
