The Haunting Of Bly Manor (Netflix-2020) You know you've got the Halloween spirit if you commit to watching a ghost story that drags out over 9 hour long episodes.......
Question is........is this worth spending that much time on?
We wish we had a simple answer for you.
Because over the course of 9 hours, we found some things we liked, some things we didn't, some things we found confounding and obtuse.......and even a few moments that scared the crap out of us.
The show uses Henry James' "Turn Of The Screw" as its jumping off point, but it has way, way more plot and subplots on its mind than you'd ever find in the original novel.
In fact, it bears more resemblance to a soap opera than a scare opera.
Lost love, thwarted love, doomed love, unrequited love.......literally every variety of dysfunctional love gets a thorough workout here. And if you make it to the final episode's extended epilogue (coming after the show has wrapped up all the haunted house chaos) , you realize that's what the story's been about all along.
Every single character here hides a tortured backstory, and by the 3rd episode, the show's challenging you to sort out which of them are dead or alive.
It's an exhausting task as the show launches into an endless series of cleverly constructed, combination dream/flashback sequences that interlock the characters like puzzle pieces that don't quite fit.
So you may find yourself muttering 'What the ****" as you navigate through them all.
And we paid little or not attention to the show's attempts to establish a set of rules and regulations for its ghostly inhabitants, (similar to a list of abilities assigned to superheroes, ya know, the usual laundry list of powers and limitations......)
Now the next, most important question for a show like this........is it scary? At the end of the day, does it go "Booga Booga!" real good?
In the BQ standards for such things, we don't count jump scares. That hoary old 'ghost-pops-out-behind-you-in-the-bathroom-mirror' trick is cheap, lazy and beneath contempt. And we do not care if a horror film or series uses it 50 times......IT DON'T MEAN JACK!
Only in the 8th, next to last episode, does 'Bly Manor' finally rev up the scare engine.
That entire episode is devoted the haunted house's 18th century origin story and it's a beautifully rendered black-and-white bad dream. And put your hands together for actress Kate Siegel as the show's primary monstrous, murdering ghost. In her 2 episode arc, she reminded us so much of the super-sexy and super scary Barbara Steele, the reigning raven haired queen of 1960's horror films. Siegel frightened us just as much as the legendary Steele.
If the 9 episodes of this show had concentrated on her character, we wouldn't have dared watching it without a defibrillator nearby.
More of an elaborate, time spanning gothic romance than a genuine horror tale, you'll have to decide if this one's your cup of ghoulish tea. A very mixed (and mixed up) bag that for its many high points, we'll scare up 2&1/2 stars. (**1/2)
But if you take your horror straight up, no chaser.......proceed at your own risk.
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