Mike Flanagan on how The Haunting of Bly Manor is different from Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House adapted and expanded Shirley Jackson's novel to great effect, and the second installment of Mike Flanagan's Haunting anthology series is set to debut on Netflix next week. Although the upcoming season does feature a handful of returning actors, it aims to tell a new story primarily based on Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw." In a new behind-the-scenes featurette released by Netflix, Flanagan dived into what sets The Haunting of Bly Manor apart from The Haunting of Hill House.

What sets Bly Manor apart is that at its heart it’s a love story. It’s a Gothic romance story. When you look at the word ‘romance’ it conjures up images in your mind. Gothic romance means something very, very different, steeped in mystery and doom, incredibly passionate emotions that swung into the darkness of human nature.

I love a good Gothic romance. "If there’s one thing that I hope fans take away from this season of Bly Manor, I think it’s that wonderful connection between a great love story and a great ghost story," Flanagan continued. "The two are really the same thing, how each of us when we fall in love is kind of giving birth to a new ghost, something that’s gonna follow us for the rest of our lives. I hope that that intermingling of a ghost story and a love story is really impactful for people, and I think by the end of this season the line between the two is pretty much obliterated entirely." The Haunting of Bly Manor will continue to sprinkle hidden ghosts in the background for the eagle-eyed among us, but Flanagan wants to use them "as an expression of emotional wounds that we do carry around" this time.

The official synopsis for The Haunting of Bly Manor:

Set in 1980s England. After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) hires a young American nanny (Victoria Pedretti) to care for his orphaned niece and nephew (Amelie Bea Smith, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) who reside at Bly Manor with the estate’s chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve) and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (T’Nia Miller). But all is not as it seems at the manor, and centuries of dark secrets of love and loss are waiting to be unearthed in this chilling gothic romance. At Bly Manor, dead doesn’t mean gone.

The Haunting of Bly Manor will debut on Netflix on October 9, 2020.