In October 2018,Netflixdebuted Mike Flanagan’sThe Haunting of Hill Houseto critical acclaim and renewed the show as an anthology series early the following year. The follow-up series, titledThe Haunting of Bly Manor,will premiere on Netflix in October 2020 and Flanagan hinted at what to expect from the show during a virtual panel for Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
Based on Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror novel of the same name, Flanagan’s adaptation ofThe Haunting of Hill Housefollowed the lives of the five Crain family siblings and the paranormal experiences they share. The series alternated between flashbacks depicting their childhood at Hill House and a present-day story exploring how the fateful night their family fled the mansion that continues to haunt them as adults. While multiple cast and crew members fromThe Haunting of Hill Housewill return forThe Haunting of Bly Manor,the Netflix serieswill not be connected to the narrative of its predecessor and is instead inspired by the horror novellaThe Turn of the Screwby Henry James.
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While James' novella has already been adapted for the screen multiple times, most recently as a 2020 feature film titledThe Turningby director Floria Sigismondi, Flanagan explained that his version of the story expands on the source material. “It’s not about doing a straight adaptation anymore – that’s already been done. […] We’d cover two episodes, and then we’d have eight episodes of filler. I need to make a 10-hour version of this,” Flanagan explained during the online conversation with fellow filmmaker Mick Garris. As withThe Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan will combine elements of the source material with his own original ideas. “That way, I can hopefully honor the source material but do it in a way that’s constantly surprising. And what I learned withHill Housewas that [the show] takes on a life of its own rather quickly,” he added.
However, Flanagan and the writers ofThe Haunting of Bly Manoralso turned to James' entire catalog of ghost stories for their adaptation. “When the show launches, you’ll see each episode is actually the title of one of his stories. They’re all braided together and made to work in one (hopefully) cohesive story,” Flanagan teased. Although Flanagan is experienced intackling adaptations of horror stories, he admitted there are challenges to adapting James' work, saying, “his language is not something that’s as easy to relate to for a contemporary reader or viewer. And certainly not easy to adapt.”
Fans ofThe Haunting of Hill Housemay be relieved to know that althoughBly Manorwill be a standalone story, there will still be somefamiliar faces from the first series.Hill Housestars Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Henry Thomas, and Kate Siegel are returning as new characters.
The Haunting of Bly Manorwill premiere on Netflix on August 11, 2025.
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