When Doctor Faraday visits a crumbling manor which he has some fond childhood memories of, very strange things begin to occur involving the remaining family members still living in the house.
The Little Stranger builds and builds the suspense in this supposed horror/ghost story without ever actually delivering anything. Surely when you have a slow burner of a film it should actually build into something interesting and exciting? Well, you would certainly hope so but in the end I just found this film to be a total waste of time. I took nothing from the story or pretty awful performances. The best word to describe this film has to be boring. Seriously very boring, I was not into it at all and just wanted it to end. Not very often I feel that way whilst watching a film and then think I've just wasted almost two hours on it.
That is how I felt about this one, Doctor Faraday is a bit of a strange man really, considering he was just a "common" boy he still managed to go on and become a doctor. He has been obsessed with the Ayres family since he can really remember, and that day he first got to visit the manor. Meeting Susan who had died not long after it. But he had his sights set on Caroline, her younger sister although not born when she was still alive. That was something that really raised my eyebrows wondering what the age difference between the pair was supposed to be? Yes, really that was something that I was thinking about when watching.
Roderick the brother who was very messed up during the War and tried to warn Faraday that something bad was in the house. Probably the most shocking moment happened early on when a small girl and the dog, or was it actually the dog? A little bit of gore, which I guessed we would see a lot more of. But by the time we got another scene like that I had more than lost interest in this slow and extremely dull film. With very poor performances to go along with it!
I seriously cannot think of anything positive to say about the film as even Gleeson who I have grown to love over the years disappointed me in this one, his character just wasn't likeable or nice and that is not a good thing when he is the leading role. It also didn't do anything for me to jump on the bandwagon of Will Poulter who I felt was all over the place with his accent in this one, I had no idea where he was supposed to be from. Ruth Wilson was as expressionless as ever, although it probably worked in this role.
Maybe I lost the whole point somewhere? I am just so unsure as it was all so very underwhelming and bland from start to finish and that is not what we really want in this genre on film, which is such a shame.
