The Haunting of Bly Manor - A review

Those following my blog and my original writing can tell I love a good ghost story. In fact it was when writing a ghost story for school at the age of 12, when I fell in love with writing. I was therefore delighted when "The Haunting of Bly Manor" appeared on my Netflix suggestions. 

"The Haunting of Bly Manor" is basically the second season of an anthology (simply "The Haunting"), whose first season is "The Haunting of Hill House" but since both seasons are completely independent when it comes to the story, this review will threat "The Haunting of Bly Manor" as an independent miniseries. 

It starts at an engagement party for a young couple and in the evening they start talking about ghost stories. One of the guests tells a story. A young woman named Dani is hired as a nanny for two children by their uncle. The children live in an old manor somewhere in England and the only other staff are a house keeper, a gardener and a cook, none of whom live there. Dani is being haunted herself as the view finds out quickly and becomes fiercely protective of the children. She learns that the nanny before her committed suicide by drowning herself in a nearby lake after falling in love with an employee of the children's uncle, who turned out to be a cheat and a thief. 

What follows is pretty much a classic ghost story, with apparitions and mysterious events. In breaking away from traditional ghost movie that series switches between daytime and nighttime. The viewer gets a sense of normality during the daylight scenes, which makes the apparitions all the more unsettling. The cast gives a great performance, especially 11 year old Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who plays Miles. His performance shows a depth well beyond his years, that can put seasoned actors to shame. 

Unfortunately halfway through the series the show takes an unexpected turn and becomes somewhat anthroposophical. It stops being a show about ghosts or mysterious events and it shifts its focus. The show manages to keep the viewer engaged but it moves away from the ghost story and in a way the audience still feels slightly cheated as this is not the show they signed up for. Most people when they start a show they want to finish it as the sort of show they started. Imagine you start watching a comedy and it becomes a crime show half the way through.   

Despite this the series is great and has a satisfactory ending, if you can get on board with the shift in the story. Apparently so far there are not plans for a third season according to director Mike Flanagan but I hope Netflix still confirms it. It is a great format to take on classic ghost stories and give them a new twist or simply crease new classics. 

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