The Haunting of Bly Manor review: Bly Manor celebrates the tragedy of the remembrance

The Haunting of Bly Manor (Netflix) (English)

Cast: Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen

Director: Mike Flanagan

Rating: 3.5/5

Bly Manor is a dream mansion where you get everything a fairy tale could offer. It's a ‘perfectly splendid’ manor with a beautiful garden, lake, breathtakingly serene woods nearby and two orphaned children, who are so pure at heart living under the guardianship of an Au pair, chef and manager of the mansion.

A few spirits also live there. While most encounters with them are short-lived, a few turn out to be fatal for the living.  

Mike Flanagan, with his ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, has already perfected the art of horror drama but he takes this series to a different level by focusing more on the audience, guiding and teaching them without depending much on dialogues.   

Bly Manor is not for everyone; it’s a slow-progressing drama that doesn’t offer you an eventful finale or is it about any big revelations. 

When it comes to the flaws, it’s evident that the series lacks the rawness of Mike’s previous work. It's not as scary as the Hill House. Just like the characters in it, the show is a bit too polished and lacks suspense. 

The over-dependence of the director on the script takes away the charm of the performances of the actors who happen to be merely mechanised to move in the direction the script demands.

It’s a great show for lovers of slow burns. It’s more loveable if you have experienced ‘Hill House’.