We’re less than two weeks away from The Haunting of Bly Manor arriving on Netflix, and if the success of predecessor Hill House is any indication, the second season of the supernatural anthology series is poised to become one of the platform’s biggest TV hits of the year. The first run surprised many people when it came out of nowhere to quickly establish a reputation as one of the finest horror shows in recent history, and now the pressure is on for creator Mike Flanagan to deliver once again.
As one of the genre’s premiere talents with a solid track record, Flanagan will be hoping to further enhance his reputation as the streaming service’s go-to guy for frights and jump scares, continuing the working relationship that’s also brought us Gerald’s Game and sees the filmmaker currently hard at work on Midnight Mass.
The first trailer for Bly Manor pitched a spiritual successor to Hill House that transplants the formula to a period setting, with the entire batch of episodes loosely based on Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw. The titles for the first six installments were recently revealed as well, leading to speculation that we would only be getting half a dozen episodes in total. However, Flanagan has now taken to social media to deny that’s the case and reveal the true episode count for the show’s sophomore outing.
A few people reached out today for some clarification on BLY MANOR, figured I’d just post it – it’s nine episodes. Some websites incorrectly have it at six, not sure why, but it’s nine.
— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) September 15, 2020
The Haunting of Bly Manor debuts 22 days before Halloween, and with fans devouring as much terrifying content as humanly possible throughout the whole of October, the hotly-anticipated return of one of Netflix’s best original shows looks set to dominate the Top 10 most-watched list until the end of the month at least.