2018 was a good year for horror, and without a doubt one of the best horror drops was Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House. Based on Shirley Jackson’s terrifying novel of the same name, the series followed the story of the Crain family, who are besieged by demons, both personal and supernatural, after moving into the ominous Hill House mansion.
After the huge success of the series it makes sense that Netflix have commissioned it for a second. The next run sees The Haunting… relaunched as an anthology series not unlike the hugely successful American Horror Story, which is also hosted on the streaming platform.
The second season of the newly announced anthology, titled The Haunting of Bly Manor, will move on from Shirley Jackson, instead taking inspiration from Henry James’s 1898 classic The Turn of the Screw. While not much is known about the adaptation so far, The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a governess and the two children she looks after. Based in a spooky old manor house — natch — the governess begins to see several ghosts who appear to have a supernatural hold over the children.
Whether the Bly Manor is really haunted, or whether the ghosts the governess sees are just a manifestation of her increasingly fracturous psyche, is left for the reader to decide. Given that the intersection of horror and psychological trauma is something The Haunting of Hill House also explored, it makes sense that this could be a main plot point of the anthology’s upcoming series.
The bad news is we still have to wait until 2020 for The Haunting of Bly Manor. So plenty of time to read the book in preparation. Or alternatively, just binge The Haunting of Hill House all over again. We wouldn’t judge you for it.