Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor will be scarier than Hill House
By Bryce Olin
The Haunting of Bly Manor, also known as season 2 of Netflix’s The Haunting anthology, will be even scarier than The Haunting of Hill House!
For horror fans, we have good news to share! For the rest of us, it’s probably bad news. According to a report from Entertainment Weekly, The Haunting of Bly Manor will be even “scarier” than The Haunting of Hill House.
Mike Flanagan, the showrunner of The Haunting anthology series at Netflix, shared a few bits of information about the new season with EW recently, and claimed the new season is “a lot more frightening, just on a visceral level,” according to the report.
The Haunting of Hill House wasn’t really scary, I guess, to me, but it was disturbing to watch. I don’t know how exactly to describe it exactly. It sounds like the new season will be even more disturbing.
The new season of the series is based on Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw. Flanagan also opened up to EW about how the series is using the novel for inspiration, but they are not following the plot directly. Instead, they’re pulling from the larger Henry James horror-verse.
Here’s what Flanagan told EW about the new season:
"“Turn of the Screw is kind of the backbone of the season. But that’s been adapted so many times, and so well, like in the case of the The Innocents and others. There’s a new adaptation coming out in like a few weeks. You can skip rocks off of The Turn of the Screw. So, we were able to open up his entire library of ghost stories, stuff that’s never been adapted, and build the whole season out with the entirety of Henry James’ supernatural library. And that has been a real treat, because we really get to do things that I’ve never gotten to see before. Turn of the Screw is really just our way in.”"
That’s a great way to go about making this new season, and it’s obviously reminiscent of how the show treated Shirley Jackson’s novel with The Haunting of Hill House. It’s not a direct adaptation, but it includes many of the work’s best elements.
The Turn of the Screw has been adapted several times throughout history, so viewers will probably notice some similarities. As Flanagan pointed out, there is another film based on The Turn of the Screw coming out soon. That film is titled The Turning and stars Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard. It’s scheduled for release in January 2020.
Flanagan is one of the best horror directors in the industry right now. Doctor Sleep is out in theaters on Friday, Nov. 8, and it will be one of the best horror movies of the year. I’m really excited to see what Flanagan and his team do next.
We still haven’t heard when The Haunting of Bly Manor will be released on Netflix. I’m guessing Netflix will want to roll the new season out in October 2020. The first season premiered on the streaming service in October 2018, and it was a huge success. Halloween is the perfect time for a show like this.
When Bly Manor eventually hits Netflix, we’ll see many of the stars of Hill House in the new season. Kate Siegel, Victoria Pedretti, Henry Thomas, Catherine Parker, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen will be back for the new season, along with Rahul Kohli, T’Nia Miller, Amelie Smith, Amelia Eve, and Benjamin Ainsworth according to TheWrap.
That’s probably not what fans want to hear. We’ll be sure to pass along any information about the new season when we find out! Stay tuned!