If you happened to see Hereditary in theaters this past weekend, you might have seen this trailer for The Little Stranger, Lenny Abrahamson’s take on the classic Sarah Waters novel. It’s cool if you don’t remember much about it, given that you might have been a theater-wide fight about the film you were actually there to see once its credits rolled (no joke: We went to a Hereditary screening on Thursday night and a shouting match broke out at a climactic moment, where a bro in the front row shouted “No, YOU shut the fuck up. This is a whack-ass movie, bro.”), but thankfully Focus Features has put the trailer online for everybody to see. So get your Domhnall Gleeson collectable plushies ready to cuddle, people: We have a spooky haunted house movie on our hands!
Peep it:
Well, that’s pretty interesting! We’re heartened by the presences of Charlotte Rampling, Ruth Wilson and the always-excellent Will Poulter, and also by the incredible post-War setting, which looks properly realized here. Abrahamson’s earned our trust after Room, given that he properly realized an incredibly difficult-to-film novel in the best way that one could, and we’ll hope he retains it after we get a chance to see this.
Here’s a synopsis:
‘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 Hundreds Hall, 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 hits theaters on August 31.
Featured image via Focus Features.