The Haunting of Bly Manor trailer teases fright fest

The Haunting of Bly Manor, the follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House, arrives this October on Netflix and reunites co-stars Henry Thomas and Victoria Pedretti.

The streaming service has released an official trailer that jealously guards ghoulish goings on in 1980's England.



"After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) hires a young American nanny (Victoria Pedretti) to care for his orphaned niece and nephew (Amelie Bea Smith, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) who reside at Bly Manor with the estate’s chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve) and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (T’Nia Miller). But all is not as it seems at the manor, and centuries of dark secrets of love and loss are waiting to be unearthed in this chilling gothic romance. At Bly Manor, dead doesn’t mean gone."

The Haunting of Bly Manor bookends a year that will be remembered for a life-changing global pandemic and began with supernatural stablemate Locke & Key.

The Haunting of Bly Manor first look

The Haunting of Hill House was a supernatural hit for Netflix in 2018 and followed the tragic tale of a family haunted by ghosts of the past and present (a theme also brilliantly explored in stablemate Locke & Key).

Henry Thomas, famous for playing Elliott in director Steven Spielberg's E.T the Extra-Terrestrial, will return in the sequel, The Haunting of Bly Manor, along with Victoria Pedretti who most recently appeared in the Spielberg-produced Amazing Stories reboot for Apple TV+.

Speaking about the new season, series creator Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep) said: “At its foundation, the Haunting series is very much about haunted spaces and haunted people. The way we make those things dance together is really going to be what’s uniform about Hill House and Bly.

“Outside of that, though, it was really important for all of us not to play the same notes we played for the first season. The first season is very much entrenched in family dynamics and death and grief and loss and child trauma. We all collectively felt like we’d said everything we wanted to say about that.”

The Haunting of Bly Manor is rumoured to stream on Netflix this October. Just in time for Halloween.

Netflix renews supernatural series Locke & Key

Netflix has renewed its spellbinding live-action adaptation of Locke & Key for a second season, which should please self-isolating fans (myself included).

Based on the graphic novel series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, Locke & Key had a long and winding road to television screens. But, the wait was worth it. I binge-viewed the first season back in February before the coronavirus lockdown and have championed the series on social media.

"We are thrilled to be continuing the journey of Locke & Key alongside all of our amazing collaborators," showrunners Carlton Cuse and Meredith Averill said in a statement. "We are grateful to Netflix for all their support, especially at this difficult time, and look forward to bringing you the exciting next chapter of our story."

Like other studios, Netflix suspended all production in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. So, the second season of Locke & Key doesn't have a release date.

Are you looking forward to the second season of Locke & Key? Let me know in the comments below.

Locke & Key is a millennial The Goonies

Netflix's latest fantasy series Locke & Key, adapted from IDW’s graphic novel series created by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez, is a spellbinding spin on haunted house and familial trauma tropes, underscored by a lush soundtrack channelling the devilish whimsy of composer Danny Elfman (Batman).

To my comic book reading shame, I'd never heard of Locke & Key until it appeared on Netflix!

Over the past twenty years or so, local comic book specialist stores have closed down, my personal life was subsumed by a family tragedy (from which I will never recover) and haven't set foot inside Forbidden Planet since the nineties.

So, I was curious to see what this new series entailed. Would it be The Haunting of Hill House lite meets The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina? Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, and that's a really good thing as Netflix has cornered a niche for supernatural nostalgia beginning with Stranger Things.

Locke & Key follows the fallout from a father's brutal murder, school guidance councillor Rendell Locke (Bill Heck), and how a family copes in the aftermath. Teens Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones) and kid brother Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) move, with their mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), to a grand gothic pile in the tradition of The Addams Family.

Here, mysterious keys start to appear: gateways to dreams, fears and the fantastical. Thus begins a coming of age tale that draws influences from Harry Potter to The Goonies as our intrepid band of heroes try to thwart a merciless evil and demons within.