I recently watched The Haunting of Hill House series again on Netflix. It’s easily one of my favorite horror stories of all time and, it being the Halloween season, I had to watch it again! The second season of the anthology series is titled The Haunting of Bly Manor and it is said to be an adaptation of the 1898 novel by Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.
The book tells the story of a governess, who will be played by Victoria Pedretti, who is hired to look after a pair of siblings whose parents had died. However, several ghosts around their manor house exhibit a supernatural hold over the children and the governess starts seeing the ghosts and is terrorized.
Well, it turns out that The Haunting of Bly Manor won’t just tell that one story. The director reveals in an interview with Games Rader that this second season will adapt “dozens” of James’ stories. He explains:
“The thing I have access to, that no other adaptation of The Turn of to the Screw has, is the rest of Henry James’ ghost stories. I get to use all of them. The Turn of the Screw has been adapted so many times. We know how perfectly it fits into a feature film format. We’re doing a whole season of television. The Turn of the Screw is only one of a dozen stories that we’re telling. All Henry James; all thematically linked.
I love this! This gets me even more excited about what this upcoming season will give us! Flanagan goes on to say:
“I think of Turning of the Screw as the backbone of this season – the through line that carries us from beginning to end. But we get to go off into The Jolly Corner and The Romance of Certain Old Clothes, and so many other of these wonderful ghost stories that people haven’t seen adapted before. It’s all wrapped up in what seems to be familiar, but that familiarity goes away really early in the first episode. It says, ‘We’re off on a whole other road.'”
“It’s been really exciting to have this much bigger canvas, because you’re not going to do better than The Innocents anyway.”
The Innocents is in reference to the 1961 movie based on the same novel. This is great and the new season is also bringing back a lot of the original cast, who will all be playing different characters. So far the cast includes Henry Thomas, Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and possibly Carla Gugino. When talking about bringing the new cast back for a whole new story, the director said:
“This frees us up because, in theory, in this anthology format, every season can be its own exploration of another classic piece of horror literature. Actors can stay or go depending on their preference and their availability. That opens it up to new cast and new chances for existing actors. I love that format. It would be quite a disappointment to have to revisit the Cranes. It would rob them of the closure they got at the end of that season.”
Flanagan mentioned some stories from Henry James that will be incorporated in the new season and I’ve provided information on them for those of you not familiar.
The Haunting of Bly Manor doesn’t have a released date yet, but you can see Flanagan’s next film, Doctor Sleep, in theatres on November 8th.