The Haunting of Bly Manor is one the best Netflix shows of 2020

Is The Haunting of Bly Manor worth a watch on Netflix?

I’m sure you’ve read all the reviews about how “perfectly splendid” The Haunting of Bly Manor is. Now, the new Netflix show is available for you to stream to see what all the fuss is about, and I highly recommend that you do.

It’s not just that The Haunting of Bly Manor is good, but there’s an argument to be made that Mike Flanagan has created two of the best Netflix shows to date with The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor.

In The Haunting of Bly Manor, Dani (Victoria Pedretti), an American living in England, takes a nanny job at Bly Manor to take care of two kids, Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Flora (Amelie Bea Smith), after the death of their parents. To make matters worse, their former nanny also died.

When weird things start to happen, Dani tries to figure out what’s going on.

The Haunting of Bly Manor has an incredible cast led by Pedretti. Hill House fans will also recognize Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Henry Thomas in starring roles in the series. T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli, Amelia Eve, and Tahirah Sharif round out the rest of the cast.

There are a few things that I think make The Haunting of Bly Manor one of the best Netflix shows of the year so far and one of the best Netflix shows of all time: the cast, the story, and the cinematography.

Without the cast, even this well-crafted story falls flat. Pedretti is as good as we have seen her yet. She’s great in Hill House and You, but this performance tops those. I was also incredibly impressed with Ainsworth and Smith, who play Miles and Flora. This story needed these three characters to be perfect or the story doesn’t work. They each nailed their performances.

Fans will definitely fall in love Rahul Kohli. He’s a scene-stealer in Bly Manor and brings some joy to an otherwise bleak affair.

Everyone in this show is brilliant, and that’s a testament of the great director that Mike Flanagan is, as well. Flanagan routinely, somehow, manages to bring the best out of each performer, and this show is another example of that.

The Haunting of Bly Manor is the perfect presentation of this story. Watching this show gave me that same feeling I get when I read a really good novel. The pages are turning and I can’t put the book down. Every page moves the story forward, but it does so more patient way than most TV shows.

Every episode flows perfectly into the next. The series is, to me, paced perfectly. Obviously, I would have loved to find out the answers to this mystery in the first episode, but that’s what made me watch episode after episode.

The camerawork in The Haunting of Bly Manor is exceptional. I don’t think it really gets better than this. The camera movements build suspense just as much as the story or the score. As the camera moves, I find myself paying attention to what’s happening in the background more than any other show on TV.

The Haunting of Bly Manor is not as scary as The Haunting of Hill House

Overall, I don’t think The Haunting of Bly Manor is quite as scary as The Haunting of Hill House. There are some moments that are as scary or possibly even scarier, depending on the viewer. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It’s hard to not compare the two shows because they are so similar. They both take place in haunted houses that look similar. The shows look and feel very similar. Obviously, there are cast members from Hill House in Bly Manor, as well.

Even with those similarities, the shows are just different and scary in their own ways. I’m not going to spoil those ways, though!

Watch The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix now.