The first teaser for Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor kicks off with a classic horror movie trope: a child singing a creepy lullaby. From there, it wanders into all places dark and scary — from an ominous well to a living doll to a sodden woman rising from a lake. October 9th cannot come soon enough.
Bly Manor is Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy’s second season of The Haunting franchise, following 2018’s terrifying The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 horror classic. The second season finds its source material in Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, which sees a nanny slowly unraveling in a remote manor that may or may not be haunted.
The new season is set in the Eighties, and features actress Victoria Pedretti in the role of the nanny; Pedretti starred in season one as Nell, a modern spin on Eleanor, the lonely protagonist of Jackson’s novel. She also recently appeared in the stalker-thriller series You, starring Penn Badgley.
The nanny’s charges Flora and Miles are played by Amelie Bea Smith and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth; other Bly Manor staff include the estate’s chef Owen (Rahul Kohli, of iZombie fame), groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve) and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (T’Nia Miller). Miles and Flora’s uncle Henry Wingrave is played by Henry Thomas, who starred as Elliott in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
The show also features writer Rebecca Klingel, who wrote for the first season and whose horror podcast Borrasca — starring Riverdale‘s Cole Sprouse — premiered this past spring.
From Rolling Stone US
