Mike Flanagan has slowly become one of the surest hands in horror. Not only has he excelled which original material like Oculus and Hush, he’s also expertly adapted tricky properties like Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, the daunting sequel to The Shining. Perhaps Flanagan’s most widely seen work, Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, was a 10-episode series that updated Shirley Jackson’s famous novel of the same name. Flanagan’s revisionist take was a hit with critics and horror aficionados alike, garnering praise from King and director Quentin Tarantino for being both spooky and emotionally rich, with a careful, compassionate focus on its characters and their inner lives. For his follow-up, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Flanagan looked to an even more sacred, notoriously difficult classic for inspiration, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. As 2020’s The Turning proved, James’ novel can be challenging to bring to the screen, with only 1961’s The Innocents achieving widespread critical success. Luckily for Flanagan, the liberties that he takes with the source material and inspiration from other James novels like The Jolly Corner and The Romance of Certain Old Clothes makes The Haunting of Bly Manor more than just an effective retelling. Like its predecessor, The Haunting of Bly Manor does the work to make you invest in each member of its ensemble cast. If The Haunting of Hill House succeeded as a deep meditation on trauma, grief, addiction, and family, Bly Manor excels as a story about toxic relationships, the burden of love, and gothic romance. The only issue? It’s light on chills and thrills. Set in 1980s England, the story centers on a young American nanny Dani (Victoria Pedretti) hired to replace an au pair after her tragic death. Dani is hired by uppity, yet detached Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) to look after his orphaned niece and nephew (Amelie Bea Smith, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) who reside at Bly Manor with the estate’s chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve) and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (T’Nia Miller). While dealing with her own personal demons, Dani notices odd behavior from the children and uncovers even stranger secrets from the manor’s recent past. That all said, Bly Manor really sticks the landing and gives each of its central characters a satisfying, yet poignant arc. T’Nia Miller and Rahul Kohli bring warmth and humanity to characters that could have been merely forgettable supporting parts and Pedretti is given a chance to showcase her chops after stealing scenes in a brief but memorable part in season one. The production design is fabulous once again and some clever editing keeps the mystery alive in the later episodes.
