This review may contain spoilers.
What makes a family? This is the question creator Mike Flanagan attempts to answer in his new Netflix series, “The Haunting of Bly Manor.” While Flanagan seems to successfully answer, by the end of the show, he fails with his disappointing treatment of his female characters and a sloppy ending.
Released Oct. 9, “Bly Manor” is the second installment in Netflix’s original “The Haunting” anthology series, which began in 2018 with “The Haunting of Hill House.” Although sequential viewing is not needed, watching “Hill House” first may be helpful in recognizing common actors from “Hill House,” such as Victoria Pedretti and Henry Thomas, this time playing different characters.
The latest series centers around Dani Clayton (Pedretti), an American woman who takes a job as an au pair tending to the wealthy Wingrave children in the fictional English country town of Bly in 1987. She is hired by the children's uncle, Henry Wingrave (Thomas), after a rather strange interview and learns that the children, who haven’t been the same since their parents’ accidental death, are even stranger. Dani also learns she is not the first au pair at Bly. Her predecessor, Miss Jessel (Tahirah Sharif), died mysteriously just six months prior. However, Dani still takes the job, eager for a fresh start and a chance to escape from her own ghosts that, quite literally, haunt her.
At Bly, Dani meets Miles Wingrave (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Flora Wingrave (Amelie Bea Smith), the surviving 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter of the deceased Lord and Lady Wingrave. On her first night, Dani realizes the children might be stranger than Henry hinted. Flora makes creepy faceless dolls and warns Dani to never leave her room at night, while Miles acts oddly mature at times.
Much like “Hill House,” the ghosts of “Bly Manor” are slowly revealed to us in a fragmentary manner that is confusing right up until the very end. As expected with a horror show, not all the characters live to see the end. On the other hand, not all of them are alive when we meet them either. In this universe, ghosts can appear to be just like humans, up until the exact moment they don’t.
By the time I discovered the secrets of “Bly Manor,” I was already invested in its characters. I wanted to know what happened, and more importantly, I wanted to find out who was really alive and who was dead. This curiosity was the only thing that allowed me to finish the show. In previews and promotions, I got the sense that the series was supposed to have a theme of found family featuring a diverse cast, something I was really excited to see. It seemed like the show had the potential to do something great.
However, the show abandons it in favor of representation that feels half-hearted and even misogynistic. For example, two characters form a healthy romantic relationship near the end of the series and still end up suffering terribly. Miss Jessel, the only Black character besides the housekeeper Hannah Grose (T’Nia Miller), has her tragic arc told in flashback sequences that are difficult to watch. While the nature of the horror genre means not everyone will receive a happy ending, it felt wrong for the characters who receive the most pain to be Black or sapphic women. The representation may have been well-intentioned, but it comes across as ill-planned and was ultimately upsetting due to poor execution.
The repetitive writing of “Bly Manor” also failed to engage me in the same way “Hill House” did. Characters in this series tend to go on long, unrealistic monologues which usually detail some traumatic past they’ve been hiding. It becomes tiresome and frustrating to watch after a while. The show wastes time on more than just tedious monologues. The penultimate episode, “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” was a complete waste of 56 minutes. I thought the plot of the episode could have been condensed and incorporated into a different episode, especially considering one episode is only 45 minutes long compared to the roughly 55-minute runtime of others.
The indulgent, lush visuals of “Bly Manor” are what saves it from a more scathing judgment. Bly and the surrounding grounds truly feel like a place out of time. Ivy creeps up the facade of the manor, and a mist hangs over the overgrown lake. The interior corridors seem twisting and maze-like despite being straight hallways. The inhabitants of Bly feel out of time too, but not always in a positive way. Some pieces of a character’s costume look anachronistic in the 1980s setting and removed me from the story, like Dani’s skinny jeans. On the other hand, Hannah’s smart earth-toned turtlenecks communicate her power in the house and lend her a regal air.
The depiction of significant scene transitions with tight shots of characters opening or closing doors, with only the lighting or costumes serving as indications that something is different, felt innovative to the show while also feeling vaguely familiar. I always felt slightly disoriented when a scene transitioned this way, as if I woke up from a dream very suddenly.
The special and visual effects are also commendable. “The Haunting” shows are, at base level, ghost stories, and the visual effects team has delivered in that department. In both shows, ghosts lose their humanity the longer they are dead, eventually literally losing their faces. The old faceless ghosts in “Bly Manor” are terrifying in their supernatural capabilities. I even jumped more than once after a sudden ghostly appearance. The scene of the underwater bedroom depicted in the trailer is simply the most gorgeous visual effect in the entire show. The sequence before and after that shot would have been exquisite, if not for the fact that it depicts a Black woman’s unnecessary suffering and death.
In the end, I was disappointed by “The Haunting of Bly Manor.” The conclusion felt lazy, as if the show wanted to ruin the themes of love and found family it had worked so hard to establish. The plot structure also mirrors “Hill House” almost exactly, leaving little room for unpredictability or surprise. If not for episode eight and the ending, the show would have fared far better. It’s honestly a shame because I really wanted everything to turn out “perfectly splendid.”
Grade: C+
