#blackwater chase

[inthefallofasparrow]

Idea for a third season of Netflix’s ‘The Haunting of...” series.

The Haunting of Blackwater Chase - adapted from the short ghost stories of 19th century English novelist, traveller and Egyptologist, Amelia B. Edwards, specifically “Was It An Illusion?” and “The Phantom Coach” .

Unassuming school inspector, Frazer Parson (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is sent to evaluate a small rural school in the isolated fictional village of Pit End, located on the edge of a coal mining region in northern Montana. After his car breaks down in the neighboring town of Drumley, and none of the locals seem to know where Pit End is exactly, let alone are willing to take him, he catches a coach the rest of the way, and must cut through a field on foot to get there.

He becomes lost in a thick fog and is still out after dark wandering the woods in search of the village, when he spots the figures of a young boy, and later, a man with a limp walking past, but neither of them seem to hear or acknowledge him when he calls out for help.

Eventually Frazer stumbles upon a lake next to a gloomy mansion in the middle of a deer park. Serendipitously, by bizarre coincidence, he discovers that the mansion, ‘Blackwater Chase’, is inhabited by an old friend of his from England named Philip Wolstenholme (Rahul Kohli), who he studied with at Oxford. Once an exuberant globetrotter, Philip appears to have filled the house to the rafters with a myriad of creepy artifacts, presumably hoarded from his various expeditions to Egypt and Italy, but has since become an eccentric recluse, shut off from the outside world and secretly afraid to leave the grounds.

The next day, Frazer visits Pit End School, where he recognises the schoolmaster, Mr Skelton (Henry Thomas) as the man he saw with a limp. Skelton, who is a rather timid and sycophantic wretch that jumps at shadows, denies seeing Frazer the night before, but is clearly alarmed by his arrival. The mansion’s groundskeeper, Ms Jacobi, who was a bus driver before coming to Blackwater Chase, warns Frazer against leaving by coach, as the local roads are treacherous and a crash killed a group of passengers a few years back. As the school is in rough shape, Frazer decides to stay in Pit End with Philip instead and together they rekindle their old relationship.

While hunting deer, Frazer occasionally sees the young boy from the first night, fishing in the murky black lake on the property and tries to talk with him to no avail. Frazer also meets a group of miners who work in the coal mine under Blackwater Chase, and attempts to face his own fears by descending into the depths of one of the mineshafts.

Strangely enough, another associate of theirs, Jane Murray (Kate Siegel) appears, having discovered the mansion by chance while wandering disorientated in the woods at night. Fascinated by Philip’s expansive collection, she too decides to stay for her own reasons, instead of catching the coach back in the morning, and Frazer later discovers that Ms Jacobi, also first arrived years ago in a similar fashion, as if Blackwater Chase was drawing the lost towards it and keeping them there.

That night, a cave-in causes the mine tunnels to flood, draining the lake above, which reveals, submerged in the thick mud at the bottom, the long dead body of the young boy, fishing rod in hand, with a pickaxe in the back of his head. Much to Frazer’s confusion, Philip denies ever having seen the boy on the property before and says that the coal mine has been empty and abandoned ever since the last time it flooded and drowned the mining crew inside, several decades ago. When Frazer asks how Blackwater Chase and the mine came to belong to his family in the first place, Philip becomes confused by the question and admits that it doesn’t, and realises he can’t remember how he got there.

#haunting of #hill house #bly manor #blackwater chase #netflix #oliver jackson cohen #kate siegel