Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor

The Haunting of Bly Manor posterA few months ago, I reviewed the much talked-about Netflix television show The Haunting of Hill House. And as requested, I’m back with a review of the follow-up season The Haunting of Bly Manor! Like Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor was created for Netflix by Mike Flanagan and it features many of the same actors, but it is not a direct sequel. Instead, while Hill House took on Shirley Jackson’s most famous novel, Bly Manor tackles the works of another beloved American author, Henry James. Loosely inspired by James’s ghostly novella The Turn of the Screw, with plot elements from a few of his other stories thrown in, the nine episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor debuted on Netflix on October 9, 2020—just in time to be the perfect mid-pandemic binge. Continue reading Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor

Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House

Poster for Netflix's The Haunting of Hill HouseThe Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson has been adapted many times. It has become, in popular culture, the quintessential haunted house story, although Shirley Jackson’s novel leaves the veracity of the haunting intentionally ambiguous. One thing many adaptations struggle with is how to maintain that ambiguity while still evoking horror. The recent Netflix series, directed by Mike Flanagan, accomplishes this balance by diverging from the source material significantly while preserving its central themes. This series arrived on Netflix in 2018, so I’m a little late to the bandwagon. But I finally finished watching it and wanted to share a few of my thoughts with you. Continue reading Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House

Netflix’s Dracula Miniseries Review

Dracula miniseries posterDo we really need another Dracula adaptation? I say, if it does something new and clever, then yes! And I think the new miniseries released earlier this year on Netflix and BBC One delivers on that. Dracula, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, is a very loose retelling of Bram Stoker’s novel that takes the vampiric Count in a unique direction and explores his relationship with a new, original character: Agatha Van Helsing. If you’re looking for something quick to watch during quarantine, I definitely recommend it! Continue reading Netflix’s Dracula Miniseries Review