Sooo good! I love horror films but most are boring or the same thing but with different actors. This was psychological horror. I'm usually the one that doesn't understand films and often my husband has to explain them to me but about halfway through I got this one.

There is another review on here that is really excellent. If you want a really great description of this movie and what it all meant just scroll through and find all the ones with spoilers. The one that explains it all is really long but it makes so much sense.

Bottom line Domhnall Gleason wanted to be part of this family but more than that he wanted their house. In the beginning of the film you think that he's got non-selfish reasons for wanting to be involved in their lives BUT you slowly come to see that everything he does is a calculated action to get the house.

If you go back and watch two particular parts in the movie that you may have missed it will help you make sense of this.

One scene was when he went out to dinner with that overweight guy. They got into the discussion about poltergeists. The other is - if you look on his writing pad on his desk in his house it has the same markings that they found in the house. This shows that it's him that's manifesting these things.

Each time Domhnall Gleason got shut down the little boy in the house would cause problems. He was the one behind all the noises. He was the one who killed Charlotte Rampling and terrorized her in the nursery. He was the one who pushed Ruth Wilson over the balcony at the end.

I feel everyone did a good job with their roles. There's a lot of criticism of Domhnall Gleason but if you think about it he was so reserved and in control of his emotions because he was so laser focused on what he wanted. Plus you have to think about the times people were very reserved because it was what was expected of them in society.

I think you just have to be the kind of person that enjoys slow burns or doesn't mind movies that don't have things blowing up or smart mouth kids or tons of dumb humor.

IMHO This was indeed a horror film. It's pretty horrifying that this doctor who was a trusted person only had sinister motives for these people. If Ruth Wilson's character would've agreed to marry him she might've lived but because she rejected him he killed her even though he was supposed to be seemingly in love with her.

It's not necessarily scary in the traditional sense but it is very psychologically horrifying. It stays with you.

'The Little Stranger' had a good deal going for it. Mixing horror, mystery and drama sounded really enticing and so did having a good cast and the director of the wonderful 'Room' Lenny Abrahamson. It really did sound very interesting, even though critically it was not as enthusiastic as one would expect it to be saw it anyway.

Having seen 'The Little Stranger', for me it was both a beguiling film but also a strange one. Reasonably liked it on the whole, but it is not an easy one to review and actually wanted to like it more than did. Can definitely understand why 'The Little Stranger' won't work, and hasn't worked, for others, it is a sedate slow-burn and requires a lot of patience and its ambiguity has understandably perplexed (but also intrigued). Not one of the best films of the year but nowhere near one of the worst, somewhere in the middle.

It looks great. Beautifully photographed, very atmospherically lit that enhances the mysterious and creepy aspects of the storytelling, evocatively costumed, sumptuous in scenery and with a suitably foreboding house that is like its own character. The music has a haunting and restrained vibe.

Abrahamson directs more than competently, not distinctively perhaps, but he seems at ease enough with the material. 'The Little Stranger' is scripted thoughtfully and appreciated the story's moody tone. Apart from at the script didn't mind the slow pace. The mystery does intrigue and the spooky moments does have creepiness, more reliant on deliberately sedate and moody atmosphere rather than obvious jolts and jumps. The cast do very well, especially Ruth Wilson and while Will Poulter's not as restrained approach threatened to jar he actually does a great job.

For my tastes though Domhnall Gleeson is a little too restrained and his character on the dull side. The mystery and spookiness could both have been more consistently delivered, later on the surprises come less and things are less clear. The film does drag a little at the start but becomes more interesting quickly.

Some people may like the ambiguity, others may find it confusing. Found it to be a little bit of both, with the biggest instance being that the ambiguity did go overboard at the end and it felt like a confused head-scratcher and abrupt.

Concluding, pretty decent but could have delivered more. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

THE LITTLE STRANGER is the latest movie from Irish director Lenny Abrahamson, but the more he goes mainstream, the less he loses his distinctive down-to-earth character-focused style. This one's an adaptation of a Sarah Waters book, but it turns out to be an excruciatingly slow and subtle ghost story, sadly populated by unlikeable characters who do very little. The setting is a country house in 1948, a setting and era I love reading about in literature, but so little happens throughout that I really wonder what the point is. It doesn't help that a dour and downcast Domnhall Gleeson is miscast as the lead, sapping life from the show, although others like Ruth Wilson and Charlotte Rampling do their best to add some colour to the otherwise limited proceedings. A barely-glimpsed Will Poulter is the biggest casualty of this one.