A Worthy Successor To Hill House?
💢 Spoiler Warning 💢
If you came here for a ghost story to keep you up at night... This is not it. If you settle down to watch this you're more in for a love story than anything else.
This 9 episode long series (directed by Mike Flanagan) follows a young teacher, Danielle (Victoria Pedretti), from America who secures a job as an au pair at Bly Manor, however, with the series predecessor being The Haunting of Hill House, it is safe to say that things at Bly quickly turn sinister, with haunting apparitions stalking the grounds of the manor. For the most part, Bly Manor shares a near identical cast to Hill House with the exception of a few new additions, such as, Rahul Kohli, Amelie Bea Smith, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, T'Nia Miller. However, in my not so expert opinion, the cast is the only thing this series has in common with Hill House, as a whole, I was incredibly disappointed and bored to tears watching this series.
Don't get me wrong, the first few episodes (1-3) were promising; there was a sense of foreboding as Dani was thrown into a whole new strange environment which was almost ancient with history which was oozing out of the bricks and mortar of the manor. The sense of unease as our protagonist explored this new world was almost tangible. This was further supported by the hidden ghosts dotted around the manor, lurking in the background of shots for those viewers who perhaps have a sharper eye than most; which became a form of morbid Easter egg hunt which I quite enjoyed and added to the sense of Dani always being watched and never quite being alone, even if the camera suggested we were. Another surprisingly positive factor about this series were the child actors, Amelie and Benjamin (Flora and Miles). A famous quote springs to mind "Never work with kids or animals" and in a lot of cases this is wise advice as kids and animals are notoriously difficult to manage and they don't always stick to the script or stage directions, in addition to being distracted easily. However, I am pleased to say that the risk payed off in Bly Manor as the kids provided solid performances throughout the series. Benjamin more of the 'dark horse' and rather creepy at times, acting much older than his years; Flora is almost the picture of innocence, the key word being "almost", as she has more to her than meets the eye. However, Flora's catch phrase "perfectly splendid" really does wear thin as it must be repeated 100 times throughout the series.
Now onto the protagonist, Dani (Victoria Pedretti), provides a brilliant performance (as she usually does) and I think the secret to her standout performance in this series is not just the generous screen time she has, but the development of her character too. Suffering from seeing her ex-fiancée's apparition haunting her after he was killed in an accident minutes after their breakup, it is clear to see that she is riddled with guilt for his death. However, 'escaping' to Bly does not help her condition. which only worsens as she is terrorised by the ghosts which reside there. She does an excellent job as displaying how draining her experiences have been and as a viewer, you can clearly see her become more and more worn down, by the end of the series she becomes a mere shell of who she was at the start (bright eyed and full of hope and optimism). A ray of light does shine upon Dani further through the series however, in the form of a green fingered gardener called Jamie (Amelia Eve). As these two begin to work together, they also become more intimate, revealing the secret behind Dani's breakup... She is actually a lesbian. As Jamie and Dani's relationship begins to blossom (no pun intended), Dani sees less and less of her dead ex which highlights to me that he was just a manifestation of her guilt and as her heart begins to move on, so does her mind, until she stops seeing him entirely. This leads me nicely onto the message I took from this series, even if somebody dies, you don't actually lose them, they may be gone, but not lost. Don't blame yourself for things out of your control as this can eat away at you from the inside, this is demonstrated by Dani's experience being haunted by her ex, which although never said out loud, she clearly blames herself for his death. This is a love story, not a ghost story.
Unfortunately, this is where the positives about this series end and it gets rather scary, but NOT in a good way... What stood out to me straight away in the first episode is the narrators utterly jarring so called 'British' accent, which fluctuates between regions more than a Monty Python sketch. Speaking Queen's English one moment then suddenly switching to a more Northern parody of Oliver Twist threw me off constantly when listening to her and making me cringe for the most part. Throughout the series are frequent flashbacks to the previous au pair who died at Bly Manor, in an effort to flesh out the backstory. However, these flashbacks are so abrupt and frequent that if you don't pay attention constantly you can easily lose track of what is going on. I did more than a few times. In addition to this, characters are sometimes 'tucked away' in memories by the ghosts and this leads to the viewer doubting what is real and what is a memory. Inception on crack is the best way to describe it and I'm not embarrassed to say I had no idea what was going on at times. From Episode 5 onwards the memory crossovers get far too much! You find yourself re-watching the same memory play out 10 times in an episode with little to no changes each time it is played out; the series ceases to be scary from this point onwards and becomes incredibly boring. I found myself wishing the episode to be over a lot of the time.
When someone is possessed by a ghost at Bly, one of their eyes changes colour. However, when Dani ends up possessed by the Lady in the Lake at the end of the series and the ghost waits inside her for years, waiting for the right moment to pounce, nobody seems to notice the BLINDINGLY obvious change in eye colour; even Jamie her spouse fails to notice this. At the very end of the series it is revealed to us that the narrator is an older version of Jamie the gardener, and she has told this story to a small group the night before a wedding (real way to ruin the mood btw Jamie...), however, Jamie wasn't present for all the events at Bly, in fact, she wasn't even on the grounds for half of it, so how on earth could she possibly know so much about what happened when she wasn't even there?!? You can count Dani out as being her source of information as she was far too scared from her experiences to live through it all again just to Jamie what had happened. Yet this question is never answered and it seems like the viewer is just supposed to turn a blind eye to this and pretend there are not huge plot holes like this throughout the series... But the MOST important factor in a horror series is whether it is actually scary or not and unfortunately it isn't. The mystery of ghosts is what makes them terrifying and fascinating, it's the fear of the unknown. This is ruined by frequent close ups and a healthy dose of screen time for the Lady in the Lake up to the point her she ceases to be scary and more of a burden to watch than anything else.
In my eyes, this 'horror' series has failed to accomplish its single most important goal. TO BE SCARY. After the first few episodes, rather than ghosts, the boredom begins to creep in and the scariest thing about the series is the thought of having to watch another episode. The Haunting of Bly Manor fails to pass the bar set by its predecessor.
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