The first full-length trailer for Mike Flanagan’s second Netflix series, The Haunting Of Bly Manor – based on Henry James’ The Turn Of The Screw – dropped a few hours ago and it’s familiar and not-so-familiar at the same time.

It’s familiar because visually it looks similar to The Haunting Of Hill House (2018) and stars Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Henry Thomas, all whom also starred in Hill House.

What’s not so great is that familiarity typically breeds contempt and if Flanagan isn’t bringing any more to the table beyond what we’ve already seen in The Haunting Of Hill House then The Haunting Of Bly Manor may be in need of major renovation.

Case in point, here’s a screen shot from the trailer.

The image features Henry Thomas hovering above Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

The thing is, if you’ve seen The Haunting Of Hill House you’re aware that this was the way The Bent-Neck Lady typically manifested to a young Nell Crain (Violet McGraw) in one of the more iconic scenes from that series.

That Flanagan uses that type of visual motif a second time doesn’t make it invalid or bad, but it does imply that he might be repeating the particular visual technique perhaps a bit too often.

Despite what I’ve mentioned above, I’ve had no reason to doubt Flanagan’s ability to tell a creepy story and wait expectantly to see The Haunting of Bly Manor.