Visiting "Bly Manor"

Minor spoilers ahead.

Created by Mike Flanagan and the same team that did "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Haunting of Bly Manor" offers a very different style of horror compared to its predecessor.  Where "Hill House" was a more typical supernatural program full of shocks and tension, "Bly Manor" is a sadder, more empathetic kind of ghost story about a group of people who are all being haunted by different things.  It may have several actors in common, and some of the same storytelling sensibilities, but I don't think it's aimed at quite the same audience either.

"Bly Manor" loosely follows the broad outlines of Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw."  An old woman in the present day (Carla Gugino) tells the story of an American au pair, Dani Clayton (Victoria Pedretti), who is hired by a London businessman, Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas), to look after his orphaned niece and nephew, Flora (Amelie Bea Smith) and Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth).  The children have not only lost their parents, but also their previous nanny, Rebecca Jessel (Tahirah Sharif), who died under mysterious circumstances.  The children live at the remote country estate of Bly Manor, staffed by the housekeeper, Hannah (T'Nia Miller), the cook, Owen (Rahul Kohli), and the groundskeeper, Jamie (Amelia Eve).  We soon learn that Bly is also haunted by various ghosts, including the faceless Lady in the Lake (Kate Siegel). 

"Bly Manor" mostly follows the same structure as "Hill House," in that each episode features a different POV character or set of characters, and many of the stories are told in different overlapping time frames.  Strange occurrences or behavior in one episode are often explained a few installments later from someone else's POV.  Some of these episodes are much better than others, but all together the pace of the series tends to be slower and more melancholy.  There are fewer jump scares and less action outside the last few episodes.  Instead, you can easily view the series as a collection of tragic character pieces.  The inhabitants of Bly Manor are put in supernatural situations that act as allegories for grief, terminal illness, trauma, guilt, and all manner of relationship issues.  There are maybe two characters who could be seen as truly malicious, while the rest are all terribly sympathetic people trying to process hefty emotional baggage.  

So, no doubt some fans of "Hill House" are going to be disappointed with "Bly Manor."  However, if you like moody Gothic chillers and can put up with some melodrama, "Bly Manor" is a very satisfying watch.  It's shamelessly manipulative, and little Flora is a walking pile of twee, but in a way that's part of the series' charm.  Of course the children have a dollhouse full of creepy little dolls representing all the characters in the show.  Of course Uncle Henry's sinister ex-valet Peter Quint (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is lurking around the place.  No points for guessing the housekeeper's terrible secret, which is blatantly telegraphed from the very first episode.  However, I like how the show treats its characters with great empathy and care.  Several of the show's apparitions turn out to not have a supernatural origin at all, which might seem like a cheat, but is appropriate for the more character-focused stories.

Production values are about on par with "Hill House," and all the performances are strong, though I do appreciate the effort to have more diverse faces in the mix this time.  There's a fabulously creepy opening credits sequence, and some good use of special effects.  My major quibbles with "Bly Manor" mostly have to do with a few clumsy story choices.  For instance, there's a big, pivotal episode that goes into the past of Bly Manor near the end of the season, which works very well as a standalone story.  However, it doesn't have nearly the effect that it should because the prior episodes don't set up the POV character very well.  Other storylines and plot elements are mysteriously dropped after a few episodes, and there are several characters I wish had gotten more time and attention.    

It also doesn't help that there have been such a glut of ghost stories lately, that some of the concepts used in "Bly Manor" feel awfully derivative.  I think the series would have gotten a much better reception if it had been released a few years earlier.  Still, I continue to enjoy Mike Flanagan's work and have high hopes for his next project, "Midnight Mass."  Hopefully some time away from the ghosts will do him some good.

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