Haunting of Hill House Creator Teases New Season Will Be More Frightening

The debut season of The Haunting of Hill House featured a fair number of frights, but creator Mike Flanagan teases that Season Two, The Haunting of Bly Manor, will likely be even more frightening. The success of the first season rests not only in its terrifying storyline, but also with the complex drama that unfolded between the characters, making for one of the most talked-about series of 2018. In addition to implying how horrifying the new season would be, the filmmaker also pointed out that the story won’t follow one narrative, but borrow from a number of tales written by Henry James.

“It’s scarier,” Flanagan shared with Entertainment Weekly. “It’s a lot more frightening, just on a visceral level.”

While the first season was an adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, the new season of the series takes place at Bly mansion, the setting for the Henry James psychological gothic horror novella The Turn of the Screw, which takes place almost entirely at the old country mansion. It is there where two young orphans are looked after by a young governess and by whom most of the story is narrated by.

“It’s a whole different vibe from Shirley Jackson,” Flanagan said of the new season. “Turn of the Screw is kind of the backbone of the season. But that’s been adapted so many times, and so well, like in the case of The Innocents and others. There’s a new adaptation coming out in like a few weeks. You can skip rocks off of The Turn of the Screw. So, we were able to open up his entire library of ghost stories, stuff that’s never been adapted, and build the whole season out with the entirety of Henry James’ supernatural library. And that has been a real treat, because we really get to do things that I’ve never gotten to see before. Turn of the Screw is really just our way in.”

Despite this new season exploring an all-new storyline, the new episodes will see the return of some familiar faces, in addition to subtle references to Hill House.

“There’s not a narrative connection, but there are little Easter eggs, for sure, not only in small details but in moments of dialogue and in some of the ideas from Hill House,” the filmmaker shared. “There are definitely going to be things that will set off that little dopamine rush that those kind of connections create. But it’s not a direct connection from a story point of view.”

Stay tuned for details on The Haunting of Bly Manor.

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