Series creator Mike Flanagan and Netflix are revisiting last year’s breakout hit ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, but unfortunately, don’t expect to see the exceptional cast to return. Netflix has renewed the series as an anthology, meaning that the second story will not include the Crain family. Instead, Flanagan is turning to another literary classic for inspiration, Henry James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’. (The first season was based on Shirley Jackson’s book ‘The Haunting of Hill House’.) Since the new season will shift locations, it has been given a new name: ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’.
This move is part of an overall multi-year development deal between Flanagan, producer Trevor Macy, and Netflix. In addition to ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, they have delivered the original horror movies ‘Gerald’s Game’ and ‘Hush’, as well as Flanagan’s ‘Before I Wake’, which was made previously but had been shelved.
Flanagan and Macy stated:
“Netflix has been an important part of our story, and we’re proud to have worked with them on The Haunting of Hill House, not to mention ‘Gerald’s Game’, ‘Hush’, and ‘Before I Wake’. They’ve enabled and supported a great deal of our work and we look forward to much more.”
Netflix’s Vice President of Original Content, Cindy Holland added:
“Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy are masterful at creating authentically frightening stories that leave audiences on the edge of their seats, but unable to look away. We’re excited to continue our partnership with them on The Haunting series and future projects to come.”
The first series told the parallel story of the Crain family, particularly the children, who spent one summer in the dilapidated manor Hill House, and were never able to escape its influence even as they grew into horribly damaged adults. Henry Thomas played the younger version of patriarch Hugh Crain, while Timothy Hutton played him as a tormented older man. Paxton Singleton, Lulu Wilson, Mckenna Grace, Julian Hilliard, and Violet McGraw portrayed the children (Steven, Shirley “Shirl”, Theodora “Theo”, Luke, and Nell, respectively.) Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser, Kate Siegel, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and Victoria Pedretti played them as adults. Steven is estranged from the family after parlaying their trauma into a series of bestselling novels, Theo suffers from intimacy issues and Luke is an addict who can’t stay clean. Shirl feels burdened with looking after all of them, while Nell just wants to please everyone. Carla Gugino also starred as the matriarch of the Crain family, Olivia.
‘The Turn of the Screw’ also centers on children living in a remote manor, so it should be a great successor to ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. In that novella, a young Governess is hired by a man who has been saddled with raising his young niece and nephew, in whom he has no interest. While caring for the kids, the Governess sees a male and female figure that seem to roam the grounds of the manor but that no one else seems to notice, however after digging into the matter, she suspects that the kids can actually see and interact with the ghosts.
Are you excited to get a second helping of ‘The Haunting of…’ even without the original cast?
Source: Collider
