Our love for ghost stories isn’t only limited to Halloween. Nowadays, film adaptations of ghost stories are sweeping the entertainment world. People are both scared and amused by a horror story. Horror stories have evolved over the decades. Now, it’s not only giving its audiences a jump scare kind of vibes but a haunting feeling too. No wonder stories about spooky ghosts are top on the list of the most loved types of horror stories.
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The Haunting of Bly Manor book series has its equally popular film adaptation. The story itself is not what you expected. It will scare you. It will captivate you. It will haunt you.
Okay, since many are looking for reviews of the Haunting of Bly Manor. Let’s take a look at its story. Let’s review the Haunting of Bly Manor.
The haunting of Bly manor book series is a beautiful storytelling about a young American woman who is employed as an au pair for two children living in Bly, whose parents are mysteriously dead. Dani was hired by the kid’s uncle who also has his own troubles connected to the death of his brother.
In the Haunting of Bly Manor book series, Dani seemed to have a guilt-driven history that is noticeable because even before she signs up as an au pair, she keeps seeing the ghost of her fiance. The terrifying creature taunts Dani again throughout the series.
As the flashbacks show, Dani was having doubts about her marriage to Eddie and hesitantly ended things with him in a car just before he rapidly exited the vehicle and was struck by a truck. While the kids, Flora and Miles have been acting strange since Dani’s arrival in Bly Manor. She thinks that their behavior was due to the passing of Rebeca, the au pair who died within the Bly Manor’s vicinity.
Flora, despite her innocent face, is giving you a creepy feeling by her whimsical behaviors like her thorough attention to her dollhouse and its peculiar figures or the way that she sometimes looks over Dani’s shoulder, gets silent, and then resumes her outward niceties.
Miles, her elder brother, on the other hand, engages in more inappropriate actions, such as looking into Dani’s bedroom while she changes or caressing her hair with malice. The two children, at first scenes, would make you anxious, like how they torment the friendly Dani while mud tracks also start to emerge on the stairs, and an odd figure appears in random reflections.
The other characters in the haunting of Bly Manor book series will also give you doubts and curiosity as you go on through reading. You will keep asking why they are like that. Could they be ghosts or humans? Well, I think that’s part of Bly Manor’s narration style.
The workers in Bly Manor are creepy and shady. Peter Quint, the family’s associate, warmly welcomes Dani. The melancholic housekeeper Hannah. The driver and cook Owen, the gardener.
Looking at how Dani was surrounded by such people would carry you away and agitate about her safety. Just so when you were convinced with the hints that the workers are ghosts acting as living humans, then the figures of the ghost come out in the middle scenes of the story. And then you’ll realize this is what the haunting of Bly Manor book series was all about.
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The lady of the lake is the most spine-chilling ghost in the season series. In the later episodes, it was revealed who is the lady of the lake, as her life was told in a flashback. Viola was murdered by her sister because of a love conflict, the latter eventually turns into a ghost without a face depicting that although her appearance fades with time, her fury never leaves her, and she irrationally drags people from Bly Manor into the river.
At the end of the series, Viola resolves to take Flora Wingrave to the lake with her to replace Flora as her substitute daughter for all eternity. But Dani being an excellent nanny, lets Viola possess her. She spends a lot of good years away from Bly Manor with her gardener lover, Jamie who was revealed later as the narrator of the story.
With characters branching out in all ways and fresh backstories, flashbacks, futures, and in-betweens emerging from one episode to the next, The Haunting of Bly Manor book series has an ambitious storyline The horror cliches are always engaging from the creepy doll houses up to something hiding in the basement. The Haunting of Bly Manor book series keeps up enough suspense and intensity as the plot keeps moving.
What is surprising is finding out in the end that Dani’s story in the haunting of Bly Manor book series is connected to the previous book, The Turn of The Screw Bly Manor, which doesn’t have a film adaptation yet.
In the haunting of Bly Manor book series, the backstory about the two sisters Perdita and Viola was taken from the Turn of The Screw Bly Manor, yet what was shown in the film about them is just limited, showing just the sibling’s conflict and moved forward to Viola becoming the ghost in the lake.
So, my review of The haunting of Bly Manor book series is, I would say do not get complacent with the story’s narration. Long-hour episodes of the show are made up of emotional memories, confusing hallucinations, and ghostly visions which will make you feel like lost in a labyrinth until an explanation was mapped out in the latter episode. But what is surprising in the haunting of Bly Manor book series is that in the end the audience is given an open-ended thought if what was haunting was really real ghosts or a traumatic experience, shifting from ghost elements to psychological thrill, which I think makes the haunting of Bly Manor book series exceptional from the other horror story.
I like how the ghostly haunting theme was associated with the psychological themes, showing to the audience that like how it is in real life, traumatic experiences could be haunting too like ghosts. All in all, I like the Haunting in Bly Manor book series in the sense that the bottom line of the story was actually deep and meaningful. In a closer look, you’ll realize that it’s not actually the ghost that is haunting Bly Manor, but it’s the memories, the love and hatred, and remorse that are haunting forever.