Haunting of Bly Manor will be more than another Turn of the Screw

November 5th 2019, 5:00pm

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Netflix and Mike Flanagan's much-anticipated second season of their masterpiece adaptation of Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE called THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR hits Netflix in 2020. And today we've learned from Flanagan himself that Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is only one of a dozen stories that they are telling throughout the second season.

He says:

The thing I have access to, that no other adaptation of The Turn of to the Screw has, is the rest of Henry James’ ghost stories. I get to use all of them. The Turn of the Screw has been adapted so many times. We know how perfectly it fits into a feature film format. We're doing a whole season of television. The Turn of the Screw is only one of a dozen stories that we're telling.

He adds:

All Henry James; all thematically linked. I think of Turning of the Screw as the backbone of this season – the through-line that carries us from beginning to end. But we get to go off into The Jolly Corner and The Romance of Certain Old Clothes, and so many other of these wonderful ghost stories that people haven't seen adapted before. It's all wrapped up in what seems to be familiar, but that familiarity goes away really early in the first episode. It says, 'We're off on a whole other road.' It’s been really exciting to have this much bigger canvas because you're not going to do better than The Innocents anyway.

What Flanagan is referring to is The Turn of the Screw was famously adapted as THE INNOCENTS in 1961 by SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES director Jack Clayton. That version starred Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens, Martin Stephens as Miles, and Pamela Franklin as Flora.

It centered on

a woman who takes a governess job for two orphans in a Victorian home. She begins to see what she believes are ghosts and suspects the children's bizarre behavior is the result of supernatural powers.

THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR hits Netflix in 2020. How excited are YOU? Let us know below! And don't forget, Floria Sigismondi's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw AKA THE TURNING starring Mackenzie Davis and Finn Wolfhard hits theaters on January 24, 2020.