The upper-crust British characters in “The Little Stranger,” the new horror film from “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson, are so rigid they make the Crawleys of “Downton Abbey” look like the Osbournes. The effect is occasionally spooky, but more often snoozy.
These walking, talking stiff upper lips populate an aging country manor called Hundreds Hall during the 1940s. The real estate listing’s fine print: It’s haunted.
When a doctor named Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson) arrives there to treat a man who was wounded in World War II, the allure of the home proves too strong. He spends all his time at the manse, and practically becomes part of the secretive family, ruled over by Mrs. Ayers (Charlotte Rampling).
Faraday also gets cozy with her daughter, Caroline, played with perfect frumpy mousiness by Ruth Wilson. Gleeson and Wilson, for all their formality, are the main reasons to see the film. They seem ripped from Edgar Allan Poe’s sweatiest nightmares.
Thanks to them, “The Little Stranger” is not totally void of dread. A ghost from the clan’s past plays some devilish tricks on the pair, which are fleetingly satisfying to watch. But the scenes in-between, when the ghoul’s on her lunch break, drag.
Congrats to Abrahamson for upgrading from a single room to a whole haunted house. Too bad the director also lugged along his straightforward aesthetic. The dressed-down, unfussy style of the Brie Larson film suited a drama about a captive mom and son. In a gothic horror film, though, we want some enticing, unusual visuals. The scenic design of Hundreds Hall is smart and detailed, but the camera work is overly static.
The monotonous “Little Stranger” should be, well, a lot stranger.
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