HOUSE OF JAMES

“REDRUM” In an empty classroom, wonkily-drawn art adorns the walls, the imagined sound of children’s laughter hangs in the air, and the smell of chalk and paint takes us back to our childhood. We’re leafing through a copy of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers when we see them: six Scrabble tiles spread across a teacher’s desk, spelling out the above.

We’re used to seeing Easter eggs on screen. But discovering one in real life – or, at least, on the Vancouver set of The Haunting Of Bly Manor – sends chills down the spine.

For all we know, the Scrabble pieces could be an irrelevance. A crew member messing around. Perhaps they bear no connection to Bly’s story, loosely based on Henry James’s 1898 horror novella “The Turn Of The Screw”, about two orphans and their governess rattling around an eerie mansion. Still, we choose to fill them with significance.

REDRUM is, of course, the most famous word in horror: born in Stephen King’s The Shining, exalted by Stanley Kubrick’s film, revisited in King’s sequel novel Doctor Sleep. There it was again in 2019’s film adaptation of Doctor Sleep by Mike Flanagan – the director of Bly, and its monstrously successful Netflix predecessor The Haunting Of Hill House.

For us, the word is a sign – not/ crossover, but of the sheer horror to come.