We’re getting even more ghosts too. Prepare to be terrified by The Haunting of Bly Manor.
With a new film in cinemas and production reaching the halfway point on The Haunting of Bly Manor, Mike Flanagan probably isn’t getting an awful lot of sleep right now.
Ironic because his new film Doctor Sleep, the follow-up to The Shining, is earning impressive reviews.
However, horror fans are also keeping a close eye on Flanagan’s next project, The Haunting of Bly Manor which is the spiritual sequel to his beloved Netflix show, The Haunting of Hill House.
Well, during a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the director of Hush and Gerald’s Game said that The Haunting of Bly Manor “is scarier” than Hill House and that the adaptation “is a lot more frightening, just on a visceral level.”
Where The Haunting of Hill House reimagined Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel of the same name, The Haunting of Bly Manor is inspired by the works of The Turn of the Screw author Henry James.
As for the plot, the new story unfolds over Christmas Eve as a group of friends gather around to share ghost stories. One of the guests, a man named Douglas, begins to tell the tale of two children (Flora and Miles) and their governess (played by Victoria Pedretti).
The governess is hired by a man to take care of his young niece and nephew after the death of their parents. However, both children are strangely distant and oddly silent.
The children also live in a forlorn estate and are frequently haunted by a mysterious evil. With growing horror, the helpless governess realises these fiendish ghouls want the children.
However, both children are drawn to the darkness for reasons unknown.
During another recent interview, Flanagan said that he expects the show to arrive on Halloween 2020 and that he plans on opening up an “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.”
To make things even better, we’re getting even more ghosts too.
We are already discussing how to up our hidden ghost game. https://t.co/rW4AW0LpF2
— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) February 22, 2019
Production on The Haunting of Bly Manor began last month and it will star Victoria Pedretti, Henry Thomas, Oliver Jackson-Cohen. Kate Siegel , Catherine Parker (all of those actors appeared in The Haunting of Hill House but they’ll be playing new characters in the follow-up).
Other cast members include newcomers Rahul Kohli, T’Nia Miller, Amelia Eve, Benjamin Ainsworth and Amelie Smith.
Ciaran Foy (Eli, Sinister 2), Yolanda Ramke & Ben Howling (Cargo), Liam Gavin (A Dark Song), and Axelle Carolyn (Tales of Halloween, Grim Grinning Ghost) will all be directing episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor.
As for Flanagan’s latest project, Doctor Sleep is currently in Irish cinemas and you can read our review of it here.
