The First Pictures of ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Season 2 Are Finally Here!

From Cosmopolitan

Thrill seekers, unite! Netflix has announced that a new haunting is on the way. But before you get excited to see Michiel Huisman or those creepy kids again, take note that this isn’t exactly The Haunting of Hill House season 2.

But it’s okay, because think about it: Did you really need to learn more about the Crain family? What even was that finale? Didn’t most of them turn into ghosts? It just feels like we spent more than enough time sitting in a funeral home analyzing everyone’s various neuroses. So buh-bye, Hill House, and hello…

So basically, this is an American Horror Story situation. Same concept, same creators, same general vibes, but a brand-new story. And truly, they should feel totally welcome to follow in AHS’s footsteps and toss in some Michiel to all the new storylines. Throw some vampire teeth on him and write a quick blood-sucking plotline. Hand him a pumpkin and scribble a Halloween episode. More Michiel, that’s all we’re saying.

Okay, now that we’ve given Netflix our instructions, what do we know about this new The Haunting Of season?

The first photos are here!!

Hello, yes, the photos of the season are starting to hit the interwebs! Here they are. They look…spooky as hell.

It’s got a whole new name

The new name is The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the episodes will drop sometime in 2020.

What’s that?

For those non-English majors out there, Bly Manor was the setting of Henry James’s gothic novel The Turn of the Screw. So Haunting will be adapting that story for the small screen. What was that plot again (asking for a friend…)?

Just your classic ghost story, really: A woman is hired to nanny/babysit two orphan children who live in a super-scary, super-haunted, super-ghost-y mansion. The two kids claim they see ghosts. The woman can’t see them. So are the kids crazy, or is she?

“The process is the same in that it’s a literary remix,” producer Trevor Macy told Vanity Fair. “You want to update the story, you want to find whatever fertile ground for elevating the character that you can in the source material, but we obviously took some liberties in updating it with a more modern setting.”

One of the big differences between season 1 and season 2 will be how the settings feel to the viewer.

“Hill House is described by Shirley Jackson as having this gothic, frightening, shadowy presence. Henry James’s Bly Manor, conversely, is described as being bright and sunny and welcoming and rather beautiful. And when the governess approaches it for the first time in the book, she isn’t afraid,” showrunner Mike Flanagan told Vanity Fair.

Other than the scary stuff, what’s this season getting at?

At the end of the day, the stories at the core of this season are really about love (allegedly). “There are three [love stories] that really beat at the heart of this season,” Flanagan told Vanity Fair. “They all have a very dark edge to them. And by the end, it’s really hard to differentiate tragedy with romance. That sense of romantic longing for someone who meant so much to us—but who’s gone—really is the heart of any ghost story.”

What about the ghosts and stuff?

Don’t worry, they’re definitely not going away. “The hidden ghosts in the first season turned out to be one of my favorite things to play with on-set,” Flanagan told Vanity Fair. “The audience seemed to really like them. I loved watching people double back and try to find more of them. It encourages repeat viewing.”

They’re going to look a little different though. The ghosts in S1 were abstractions. These will not be. “This season, we wanted our hidden elements to tell their own story. And very much unlike the first season, they’re actually going to be explained. By the end of the season, you’re going to know who they are and why they’re there,” he said.

Who’s in it?

Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Victoria Pedretti, the actors who played Luke Crain and his younger twin, Nell, are officially coming back!

Oliver will play a charming man named Peter, “a resident of Bly Manor who makes life very difficult for everyone who lives there,” and Victoria will play the governess, Dani, who “looks after two very unusual children.”

As for everyone else, Henry Thomas, Catherine Parker, and Kate Siegel are also set to return. Newcomers will include Rahul Kohli, T’Nia Miller, Amelia Eve, Benjamin Ainsworth, and Amelie Smith.

We’ll be sure to update this post as more details are revealed. For now, I’m just happy that this guy will be back on our screens soon…ish:

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