The Haunting of Bly Manor: A Review
By: Mallory Johnson, Reporter
“The Haunting of Bly Manor” is one season of a horror anthology show on Netflix, and it follows an au pair (Dani) who moves to London and takes a nanny job at the haunted Bly Manor. Although I am not a big horror fan, my friend convinced me to watch the show. The series stars Victoria Pedretti (You, The Haunting of Hill House), Amelia Eve (Big Boys Don’t Cry, Enterprice), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House, The Invisible Man), and T’Nia Miller (Sex Education, The Feed). I personally went into the show knowing quite a bit of spoilers from social media (because I was not planning on watching it), but I want to put a MAJOR SPOILER ALERT in place right here. I also want to put in place a trigger warning for the show in regard to death, ghosts, alcoholism, possession, an abusive relationship, suicide, drowning, spiders, animal abuse (not graphic), smoking, illness, a car crash (a man is hit by a car), blood, cheating, jump scares, murder, gaslighting, incest, and choking. On a scale of 1-10 scary wise (with one being not scary at all, and ten being terrifying) for me, I would give it a 4, maybe a 4.5. The scares are mainly trauma based (for example, the reflection that Dani sees in one scene is based on her own trauma). These trauma-based scares were very interesting to me while watching the show. I was honestly very surprised by how much I enjoyed this show considering I am not a big horror fan.
My favorite part of the series was Dani and Jamie’s relationship. They were one of the healthiest parts of a show with plenty of unhealthy moments. Something that was very refreshing to me, was that Dani and Jamie are a queer couple in the late 1980s and early 1990’s but they don’t face any homophobia within the show. There were no slurs shouted at them, no hate crimes committed against them and they did not face the AIDS crisis (although this was more prevalent for homosexual men at the time). All these things could have easily happened to them, but they did not. Also, there was no coming out scene, and their relationship was not over sexualized. This is important because it shows that queer people can have a great life, regardless of those who disagree and it normalizes these types of relationships in media. The only hardship related to their sexualities is the inability to get married, but Dani still proposes and says “I know we can’t technically get married, but we can wear the rings, and we’ll know.” I loved how Jamie called Dani “Poppins,” because her job was like Mary Poppins. Additionally, the show takes place in the UK, so I loved all the different accents in the show.
I found all the possessions and the ghosts interesting because during the first half of the show’s season, you have no idea about any of it but you slowly start to figure it out. The twist with Hannah being dead before Dani even arrived at Bly was crazy! I love how twisty the show’s plot is.
The last episode was so heartbreaking, but beautifully done. It was a bittersweet ending to the show, but necessary since there is only one season of “Bly Manor”. I made a long playlist of songs that remind me of different aspects of the show on Apple Music (it is called “Bly Manor” and my account name is Mallory Johnson, for those interested). I really liked this show, and my overall rating is 9.5/10. I highly recommend it if you like horror! (And even if you don’t!)