Director Mike Flanagan is following up his 2018 Netflix adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House with a second installment, but does The Haunting of Bly Manor function as a direct sequel? With a new setting and story, Bly Manor serves only as an anthological sequel to Flanagan's first season, telling an entirely different tale.
Welcoming back familiar faces as new characters, The Haunting of Bly Manor stars Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Henry Thomas and Kate Siegel. Flanagan's recurring cast is thrown into new context, the actors embodying fresh fear throughout the season's eerie narrative. Sharing the supernatural theme of Hill House, the characters in Bly Manor find themselves in the midsts of spirits in another grand home. Welcoming new actors as well, the season will also star T'Nia Miller (Sex Education), Rahul Kohli, and Tahirah Sharif.
Based on Henry James's 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw, Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor tells the story of a young governess tasked with caring for a wealthy man's niece and nephew. Upon her arrival at the large estate, she begins experiencing apparitions and paranormal occurrences, prompting her to investigate the history and happenings of the house. Flanagan's series is far from the first screen adaption of the novella — previous retellings include Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961), Michael Winner's The Nightcomers (1972)—a prequel to James's tale—and, most recently, Floria Sigismondi's The Turning (2020), which was met with negative critical reviews, placing high hopes on Flanagan's series.
In Flanagan's second outing, which has received largely positive critical reviews, the director tells his version of the macabre events that transpire in The Turn of the Screw. The Haunting of Bly Manor, much like its predecessor, adapts its source text in a creative manner, altering time period and plot points in order to embody a modern retelling. James's gothic novella begins with a group of unidentified individuals listening to a man named Douglas as he reads aloud a manuscript written by a governess he once knew. After informing his listeners that the governess is now dead, Douglas launches into a haunting ghost story that recounts the woman's experience during her time at the Bly home. Flanagan's adaptation introduces us to Dani Clayton (Victoria Pedretti) as the modernized governess, who, in the 1980's, accepts a position at a wealthy family's remote estate.
Hired by Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) to mind his young niece and nephew, Flora and Miles Wingrave, Dani soon finds that something is amiss at the manor. Following in the footsteps of Hill House, the characters in The Haunting of Bly Manor find themselves in a unique and tumultuous relationship with the supernatural. Continuing to explore the ways in which spirits appear as a manifestation of the living's fear or anxiety, Flanagan uses the context of James's novella as a basis to question the characters, their circumstances, and their stories. Expanding on themes associated with the paranormal, Flanagan portrays the relationship between haunted and haunter in an intimate and inviting way. The emotional pull of The Haunting of Hill House allowed a tale of horror to become a harrowing family tragedy that proved some spirits are not always as malevolent as they may seem.
Through his anthology series, Mike Flanagan morphs fear into empathy, humanizing the souls that linger between worlds, searching for peace and closure. With his first season focusing on family and generational trauma, his second installment, The Haunting of Bly Manor, continues to examine the ways in which beings are brought together by loss, love and life's mysteries.