One of the great things about Lenny Abrahamson as a director is that none of his films are ever the same. Even Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski knows what’s up and described Abrahamson as “a filmmaker who has proven to redefine every genre he takes on.”
His first film, “Adam & Paul,” was a buddy comedy about drug addicts, then his 2014 breakout film “Frank” was about an enigmatic musician who constantly wears a paper-mâché mask over his head, and he followed that with the Oscar-winning kidnapping drama “Room.”
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So naturally, his next film would be the supernatural gothic horror movie, “The Little Stranger.” Although, according to star Domhnall Gleeson, it’s not a horror story. Gleeson mentioned to Digital Spy that the film is “a very unsettling psychological ghost story, in a way that I think will be compulsive… it’s got something of that oddness to it, creeping psychological dread, that I think is scary but not quite horror.”
We’ll let you check out the synopsis and trailer and decide for yourselves about that.
THE LITTLE STRANGER tells the story of Dr. Faraday, the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1948, he is called to a patient at HundredsHall, where his mother once worked. The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries. But it is now in decline and its inhabitants – mother, son and daughter – are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how disturbingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.
“The Little Stranger” reunites Abrahamson with “Frank” star Gleeson and also stars Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter and Charlotte Rampling. The film was written by “The Danish Girl” screenwriter Lucinda Coxon who adapted Sarah Waters’ acclaimed 2009 novel.
Focus Features will release “The Little Stranger” on August 31.
