In some of this week’s most intriguing TV news, Netflix has announced that Season 2 of hit horror series The Haunting Of Hill House will be titled The Haunting Of Bly Manor, referencing the house featured in Henry James’ 1898 ghost story The Turn Of The Screw. The new season is set to hit screens in 2020.
The streaming service released the news with a series of mysterious tweets, including a short but creepy video teaser:
HERE’s a hint for the title: The Haunting of *** *****. https://t.co/yJrqj38EkV
— NX (@NXOnNetflix) February 21, 2019
You guessed it. The HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR, a new chapter in the Haunting series based on the works of Henry James, is coming in 2020. pic.twitter.com/nvhRBEfH2E
— The Haunting of Hill House (@haunting) February 21, 2019
The news of course transforms The Haunting into an anthology series, but we’re into it, especially as creator Mike Flanagan and executive producer Trevor Macy are returning to helm The Haunting Of Bly Manor as part of their multi-year deal with Netflix.
The series won’t be the first screen adaptation of the story: in 1961, Jack Clayton directed the critically acclaimed picture The Innocents, which in turn was based on the 1950 Turn Of The Screw-inspired Broadway play of the same name. Subsequently, director Michael Winner released a prequel to the story in 1972, titled The Nightcomers, which starred Marlon Brando. Many other film and TV adaptations have followed, including a series of European films and a 2009 BBC version.
For those unfamiliar with The Turn Of The Screw, here’s Goodreads’ synopsis for the tale:
A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate…An estate haunted by a beckoning evil.
Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls…
But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil.
For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.
The Haunting Of Bly Manor will premiere on Netflix in 2020. Get all the latest horror news with every issue of SciFiNow.