‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ has a dark lesson about love, say cast members, creator

Apart from being a horror series, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is also a love story.

With creator Mike Flanagan calling it a “gothic romance,” “The Haunting of Bly Manor” sure did bring in some lessons in love.

In a virtual roundtable interview with cast members Victoria Pedretti and Henry Thomas, they shared some takeaways from the series about love.

To Henry, he said it was more of “a warning about loss more than it is about love; it’s more about the regrets and the loss that are tied to love rather than love itself.”

“I think that’s where the lesson is if it has a lesson at all and that’s just there’s risks to everything and there’s a dark side to everything and it explores that theme,” he told GMA News Online.

Agreeing with Henry, Victoria said she felt like “it’s saying that love will ultimately unavoidably cause you deep pain. And that is no justification to them inflicting pain in other people.”

Victoria and Henry are returning to “The Haunting” anthology with “The Haunting of Bly Manor.” The two previously starred in the Halloween 2018 Netflix hit “The Haunting of Hill House.”

Henry returns this season with a different character as Henry Wingrave, the uncle of the orphaned children at Bly Manor. He previously played the young Hugh Crain, the father of the Crain family on “Hill House.”

Meanwhile, Victoria plays the nanny who will be hired by Henry to look after his orphaned nephew and niece at Bly Manor. The actress previously played Nellie or the iconic “Bent Neck Lady” on “Hill House.”

Aside from Victoria and Henry, other “Bly Manor” stars returning from “Hill House” are Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kate Sigel, and Tahirah Sharif.

“Hill House” producing partners Mike and Trevor Macy also return for this follow-up.

In a previous behind the scenes featurette, Mike said while “Hill House” centered on family and their issues, “Bly Manor” was about strangers and gothic romance.

“When you look at the word romance, it conjures up images in your mind, gothic romance means something very, very different ... mystery and doom, incredibly passionate emotions that swung into the darkness of human nature,” he said in the featurette.

The creator hoped the audience would see Bly Manor’s “wonderful connection between a great love story and a great ghost story.”

“The two are really the same thing, how each of us when we fall in love, is kind of giving birth to a new ghost, something that’s gonna follow us for the rest of our lives,” Mike said.

“I hope that the intermingling of a ghost story and a love story is really impactful for people, and I think by the end of the season the line between the two is pretty much obliterated entirely,” he added.

“The Haunting of Bly Manor” is set in 1980s England. After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) hires a young American nanny (Victoria Pedretti) to look after his orphaned niece and nephew (Amelie Bea Smith, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) living at Bly Manor with their home chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve) and housekeeper Mrs. Grose (T’Nia Miller).  

“The Haunting of Bly Manor” will premiere Oct. 9 on Netflix with nine episodes. – RC, GMA News