Trama

After a doctor is called to visit a crumbling manor, strange things begin to occur.

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 disturbingly, the family's story is about to become entwined with his own.—Focus Features

Oscar-nominated Irish director Lenny Abrahamson's horror mystery is an adaptation of Welsh novelist Sarah Waters' 2009 gothic novel of the same name. In 1947, a stoic doctor (Domhnall Gleeson) arrives at Hundreds Hall manor to investigate a reported haunting. He soon finds that the ghosts surrounding the Ayers family (Charlotte Rampling, Ruth Wilson, and Will Poulter) have bearings on his own past.

Dr. Faraday, a country physician of humble beginnings, is called to Hundreds Hall, an 18th-century estate, in 1947 to attend to the maid, Betty. As a boy, he and his mother, a former maid, had been admitted to the house during the 1919 Empire Day party. Enamored with the house, he broke off an ornamental acorn from a mirror frame, causing his mother to slap him for vandalism. The Hall now belongs to Roderick Ayres, a scarred Royal Air Force veteran. The elderly Mrs Ayres also lives there with her daughter Caroline. Upon arriving, Dr Faraday observes the house has decayed over the years and the family is in severe financial straits. During a house party Dr Faraday attends, a couple brings their young child, who is mauled by Caroline's previously-gentle Labrador retriever. Dr. Faraday later meets with Roderick, who claims there is a supernatural force in the house that hates him. Dr Faraday takes this as evidence of Roderick being of unsound mind, and becomes alarmed when he learns Roderick is planning a land sale. Roderick accosts Dr Faraday about intruding into the Ayres' affairs. Roderick later sets fire to his room and is committed to an asylum. Dr Faraday resolves to stay and care for the Ayres. He becomes romantically involved with Caroline, despite her being of a higher social class..

In 1940s Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is called to visit a sick maid at the dilapidated Hundreds Hall. The maid confesses to faking and hopes the doctor will send her home. The Hall now belongs to Roderick Ayres, a scarred Royal Air Force veteran severely burned in the Second World War, who is being nursed by his sister, Caroline. Dr. Faraday recalls during his childhood in 1919 visiting the house, where his beloved mother had once been a maid to the grand Ayres family. He once broke an acorn from an elaborate plaster carving, to his mother's anger, in view of young Susan, the Ayres' first daughter, known as Suki.

There are intermittent noises occurring in the house, alarming Caroline, Mrs. Ayres and the maid. The servants' bells sound without anyone ringing them. A 19th century tube communication device linking the empty nursery to the kitchen also begins to sound inexplicably. When Mrs. Ayres goes upstairs to investigate, she is suddenly locked in the nursery. Experiencing shadowy figures and strange banging noises, Mrs. Ayres, in a frantic attempt to escape, breaks the windows, cutting both arms. After the others in the household rescue her from the room, she comes to believe that Suki's ghost is always nearby.

Not long afterwards, Mrs. Ayres kills herself by slashing her wrists with the glass from a broken picture frame. Roderick attends the funeral, admonishing Caroline to leave the house lest she might be the next to die. On the night of the funeral, Faraday and a reluctant Caroline make plans to marry in six weeks' time. Later, Faraday considers that the strange occurrences in the house may well be due to poltergeist activity. It is suggested that supernatural phenomena might be the product of random, unintended telekinesis, which may well be poltergeist-like activity caused by a living person (as opposed to a dead one).

Caroline eventually breaks off her engagement to Dr. Faraday, insisting that she would not be happy married to him, and expressing her intention to sell Hundreds Hall. Faraday insists that she is merely exhausted and not thinking clearly.

One night, Faraday has a house call that keeps him off-premises. When he finally arrives home, he learns that Caroline has fallen from the second floor to her death.

At the inquest into Caroline's death, the maid reports that she awoke to hear Caroline going upstairs to investigate a strange noise in the hall. She also reports hearing Caroline cry out "You!," immediately before falling to her death. After Dr. Faraday testifies that Caroline's mind was undoubtedly "clouded," the coroner declares the death to be a suicide. The court concurs.

Months later, Faraday visits the Ayres home while it is up for sale, having kept the keys which Caroline gave him. As he leaves the premises, the lifelike spectre of a young Faraday standing at the top of the staircase (where Caroline fell) solemnly watches him before backing away into the darkness.