Domhnall Gleeson says The Little Stranger is NOT a horror story. It's a ghost story. #book2movies

 Domhnall Gleeson sporting his Dr. Faraday mustache for The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger starring Domhnall Gleeson—and  reuniting him with Frank director Lenny Abrahamson—has been set for an August 31st opening, which is ages and ages away until it’s not. I need to read the book sometime before then. My twitter friend Teresa Campbell @IrishGalTeresa would never forgive me for skipping it as she’s been a huge fan of the book since day one.

In the meantime, I dug up a video featuring author Sarah Waters talking about the book and how a tale about the class system in England came to be a gothic ghost story. One, which she says, (somewhat shamelessly) alludes to other books in the genre—Rebecca, for example.

Sarah Waters on The Little Stranger

About the movie:

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.

Domhnall Gleeson (Dr. Faraday) says ... 

“I wouldn’t say [it’s a] horror,” said Gleeson. “It’s a ghost story – a very unsettling psychological ghost story, in a way that I think will be compulsive. There’s an oddness to it. You know like The Others and films like that – there’s something like that about it. Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You – it’s got that vibe to it. And Gaslight – not exactly that vibe because they’re older, but it’s got something of that oddness to it, creeping psychological dread, that I think is scary but not quite horror. The guy I’m playing is containing a lot of remorse and anger and sadness and sexuality.”

 Oliver Zetterström plays the young Faraday

The cast of The Little Stranger includes Will Poulter, Ruth Wilson and Charlotte Rampling.

Have you read the book? Are you looking forward to the big screen adaptation or dreading it in case they, as they often do, blow it? Five months away. We should be seeing a trailer, at least a teaser, soon. Give me a holler if you catch it first please. You can always find me on twitter @SimCarter