Netflix: Review of THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR: Stretching the Screw

October 19, 2020

American Dani Clayton (Victoria Perdetti) applied a job as an au pair in England and was accepted by employer Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas). She was to take care of his troubled nephew Miles and niece Flora, who had lost their parents Dominic (Matthew Holness) and Charlotte (Alex Essoe) during a trip to India. When she arrived at the stately Bly Manor, she would be oriented by the staff -- the housekeeper Mrs. Grose (T'nia Miller), the chef Owen (Rahul Kohli) and the gardener Jessie (Amelia Eve). 

Bly Manor was haunted by the spirits of two previous residents -- the children's former au pair Ms. Rebecca Jessel (Tahira Sharif), a smart ambitious woman who took her own life for unknown reasons; and Henry's former valet Peter Quint (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a man of dubious character who also disappeared under similarly mysterious circumstances. Aside from them, there was the ghost of a faceless woman with long black hair wearing a white nightgown who rose from the depths of the lake to also walk the halls of Bly Manor.

The poster announced that this series was made by the creator of the critically-acclaimed 2018 series "The Haunting of Hill House." At that time, I had not yet been watching mini-series on Netflix yet, so I only checked out the first episode of Hill after finishing Bly. In the opening credits alone, I already saw that writer-director Mike Flanagan had recast several of the actors from Hill in Bly, like Thomas, Siegel, Perdetti, Jackson-Cohen and Gugino. 

The main story of "Bly Manor" was that of Henry James' 1898 classic novella, "The Turn of the Screw." However, Flanagan added several (required?) modern touches, like the all-inclusive casting of the roles, as well as an LGBT angle. By the 8th episode, we are brought further back in the history of Bly Manor, shifting to black and white to tell the story of the two sisters who once owned the estate -- Viola and Perdita Willoughby (Kate Siegel and Katie Parker). The final episode further added the story what happened to Dani beyond Bly.

The pace of the storytelling was quite slow, especially the first three episodes, and there wasn't much horror scenes as may be expected, which may disappoint many viewers. It was all atmosphere-building and character-building until about Episode 7, when true evil and horror finally came to fore. There were scenes of existential discussions which criss-crossed from past to present for all of the characters, going around in circles with recurring dialogue with added dimensions every time. Well-acted and seamlessly executed as these scenes may be, their point seemed superfluous in the overall flow of the story.

This mini-series was bookended by a prologue and epilogue sequence about a wedding in the present day. The whole story was being narrated by a female guest (Carla Gugino) to the couple and some other people at the party. I felt this was a rather awkward device to introduce and tell this type of story because of the seeming inappropriateness of the occasion. There was an attempt to make a metaphorical connection at the end that may seem clever at first, but for me, this final gimmick felt a tad overreaching. 6/10.