Cover your ears
The Haunting of Bly Manor is one of Netflix's most anticipated shows of the year. It is the follow-up to 2018's The Haunting of Hill House, and is just as scary as that show.
(Don't worry, there are no spoilers here).
However, there is one thing that some viewers are finding horrifying, and not in a good way: the accents.
Because a lot of the series is set in the UK, we unfortunately have a lot of Americans doing wonky British accents - which for UK viewers has been somewhat distracting.
https://twitter.com/haunting/status/1314414030648414208
The opening of the first episode of The Haunting of Bly Manor has Carla Gugino (who also starred in Hill House) doing a rather hard to pin down English accent, that had people on social media struggle to tell where it was from.
https://twitter.com/lonelyspeck/status/1315004021229326336
https://twitter.com/amr_ita/status/1314635340200775681
One user said it was like she was trying to do "all of England at the same time," while another said it sounded like it was "supposed to be posh with a mixture of Northern".
https://twitter.com/george94holland/status/1315046874714443783
However, most scorn was saved for an actor who is actually British, Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who plays Peter Quint, is from London, but does a Scottish accent in The Haunting of Bly Manor.
And people on social media do not think he did a good job.
https://twitter.com/dams3lfly/status/1315386811653517314
https://twitter.com/GCorner101/status/1315951129788907520
https://twitter.com/trcinspotting/status/1314747372178731009
https://twitter.com/Jaydeee1992/status/1315061165136007176
His accent has been described as "the worst thing ever" and "absolutely grim" on Twitter.
"It would be perfectly splendid if folk would start using actual Scottish people for Scottish roles," said another viewer. "That accent was the most horrifying thing in The Haunting of Bly Manor."
(All the clips of Jackson-Cohen's accents we could find online were a bit spoiler-y, but fire up Netflix yourself in you want to hear it).
It seems the response has not gone unnoticed by the cast - Rahul Kohli, who appears in the show (and is British) tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/RahulKohli13/status/1315770777212350465
Oh well. At least this accent was meant to be bad:
https://twitter.com/haunting/status/1314657768448692226
