The Haunting of Bly Manor

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Season 1
  • Network: Netflix
  • Series Premiere Date: Oct 9, 2020
Metascore
63

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
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Critic Reviews

  1. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Angelica Jade Bastien
    Oct 8, 2020
    50
    So much of what works in this series is because of the sort of heart and strong emotional beats seen in Hannah’s story. But without a precise handling of plotting and a more daring approach to horror, those more intriguing emotional beats falter and fade away. For all its heart, Bly Manor lacks the bravura necessary to work as the love story wrapped in a ghostly tale that it is aching to be.
  2. RogerEbert.com
    Reviewed by: Nick Allen
    Oct 5, 2020
    50
    If “Hill House” provided a blueprint in how to tell a long, heartbreaking, and actually scary story, the failures and indulgences of “Bly Manor” are unfortunate examples in how not to.
  3. The Guardian
    Reviewed by: Lucy Mangan
    Oct 9, 2020
    40
    If all you’re up for is a relatively plotless bit of atmospherics, enjoy your time at Bly Manor. Fans of Hill House will have to hope for a return to spooky form next time.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Daniel Fienberg
    Oct 7, 2020
    50
    Flanagan has taken one of the most elegantly simple and enigmatic of novellas and found a way to over-explain everything from plot mechanics to theme, producing a nine-episode season that's sensuous, spooky and evasive one moment and cumbersomely obvious the next. You may want to wallow in this evocative world, but probably not as much as Flanagan does, which ends up being a real problem for long stretches.
  6. The Telegraph
    Reviewed by: Ed Power
    Oct 9, 2020
    40
    Flanagan is to be applauded for his ambition. However, the mannered entertainment that results feels like a waste of the raw materials assembled.
  7. Vanity Fair
    Reviewed by: Richard Lawson
    Oct 6, 2020
    60
    The series attempts to link [the characters'] disparate dramas together as it builds, but gets awfully soapy in the process. Bly Manor plods along through its nine episodes, trying to find the reason for this grand convergence. It gets there eventually, but only after sifting through a lot of clutter.
  8. Variety
    Reviewed by: Daniel D'Addario
    Oct 5, 2020
    50
    [The Haunting of Bly Manor] shares with its predecessor a sensibility, a high-flying literary inspiration (the work of Henry James this time), a crisp and pristine visual aesthetic and some cast members, never takes flight in the way genre devotees might expect. For one thing, it’s too rarely really scary; for another, more important one, it gets confounded by its own story

Awards & Rankings

16
#16 Most Discussed TV Season of 2020
27
#27 Most Shared TV Season of 2020

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 95 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 58 out of 95
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 95
  3. Negative: 22 out of 95
  1. kawaiipotatoe
    Oct 10, 2020
    0
    This is actually the worst show I have seen in ages. Please do not watch it, I have wasted time of my life I will never get back. This is notThis is actually the worst show I have seen in ages. Please do not watch it, I have wasted time of my life I will never get back. This is not only desperate in referencing the original season but it is also attempting to elaborate on every single possible **** detail that it can - it tells and refuses to show. You can literally be brain dead and watch this and still understand the linear message it is trying to send because there is very little room for either interpretation or anything else. Although one episode sticks out as being unique, the one about Mrs Grose, the rest of the show continues to reply on it as a crutch and falls. Also, please keep in mind that much of the show has like a billion plot points that are brought up and forgotten all for the sake of ending the episode or making something seem more interesting than it ever can be. The show sucks, a hundred different writers and directors worked on it and communicated with each other from what I assume was a potato. Literally, none of their plots join, it does not work, and the editing is its only saving grace with that falling short as the show nears its conclusion… Full Review »
  2. DESIGRON
    Oct 11, 2020
    0
    That's a great example of how "modern standards" can ruin a show. Better to watch the first one.
  3. yurieu
    Oct 11, 2020
    0
    I don't know on what I've spent some hours on. This series has no genre, it's not a thriller, it's not an horror neither a psychologicalI don't know on what I've spent some hours on. This series has no genre, it's not a thriller, it's not an horror neither a psychological horror; there is too much talking and nothing else. Character's individualistic storytelling reminds me the awful The Walking Dead segments with too much talking and excess focus on unlikable characters. Skip this is the best option.… Full Review »
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