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Memories can be fickle, or they can be haunting. Mike Flanagan’s Netflix series “The Haunting of Bly Manor” tries to decipher ways of looking at memories and reliving events. The flashbacks and looping of several scenes can be disorienting, but the show does its job in providing an eerie, beautiful and tragic story.

Loosely based on “The Turn of the Screw,” an 1898 horror novella by Henry James, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is mostly set at the titular home in the late 1980s. The Wingrave children, Miles and Flora, are staying at their summer home in Bly. Memories of their parents, who died several years prior, haunt them. The Wingrave’s uncle hires a governess from the United States, Dani (Victoria Pedretti), to help take care of the children. Dani also has a tragic past, and she relives those experiences alongside the recurring memories of Bly Manor’s grim history.

Flanagan’s series is similar in many respects to the first entry in this anthology, “The Haunting of Hill House,” in that both discuss a haunted, old house where a family dealing with a tragedy lives. A lot of the main actors even returned from “Hill House.” But this show differs in the methods used to solicit scares.

While “Hill House” has more outwardly frightening imagery, “Bly Manor” relies on playing with the main character’s fragmented memories. The ghosts and twists are frightening not because of their appearance but through their association with trauma and guilt. Every main character is dealing with some form of loss during the show, and the way each individual reacts is different.

One such way is through dialogue. “Bly Manor” features multiple monologues and scenes in which characters explain their feelings. Too many monologues and metaphors packed into a show can weigh down a series, but Flanagan, the writers and the cast make every moment feel as natural as possible. They wait several episodes to include the speeches so you can get to know the characters and so the show doesn’t abruptly drop revelations on viewers at the onset.

The series is certainly not just speeches and flashbacks. The Bly Manor house is wonderfully designed, with various rooms, nooks and crannies to explore. The exterior sets around the home are gorgeous, and the costume design is very well done. The ghosts that do appear also have a convincingly frightening look.

With that said, the monsters are never the main focus. The characters and their lives take center stage, and “The Haunting of Bly Manor” takes every chance to explore each of their complicated lives. With particularly strong acting from Victoria Pedretti, T’Nia Miller and Amelia Eve, as well as details hidden in the backgrounds of scenes and personality and drama in each line, “Bly Manor” covers all its bases.

This all builds to the strong emotional core of the show: the apparent fear of dealing with the haunting memories that keep popping up in the main character’s lives. Flanagan once again creates an environment that’s frightening to witness because of its familiarity. It’s refreshing to see a horror series that relies rarely on jump scares and monsters and mainly on great characters and internal tension.

Such details make the show a perfect series to revisit each year, potentially on Halloween. “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is a hard show to completely understand on just one viewing. It frightens and intrigues because it forms a narrative around its core cast and protagonists, creating a strong collection of dreams and nightmares that deserves to be replayed.

Published on October 27, 2020 at 9:54 pm

Contact Patrick: pagunn@syr.edu