Room director Lenny Abrahamson has adapted another book into a movie with his upcoming film The Little Stranger, hitting theaters on Aug. 31. The film was based on Sarah Waters’ 2009 novel. 

Abrahamson said he didn’t read The Little Stranger with a movie adaptation in mind, but since the mysterious, fictional story was so captive, he wanted to do more with it. 

“I think what really struck me was how connected the ghostly elements were to the character elements,” Abrahamson said, “It’s not just, ‘What’s the scariest situation we can create?’ It’s really a film about what happens to those particular people and all of the dark stuff that comes from them.”

The Litter Stranger stars Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson and is written by Lucinda Coxon. It tells the story of Dr. Faraday (Gleeson), the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. In 1948, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked. The inhabitants of the Hall are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. After Faraday takes on his new patient, he has no idea how the family history is about to become entwined with his own.

The film deals with issues that are also present in the U.S now, namely, class distinction, equality and familial separation. The director believes that his story is highly relevant to the separation of families at the U.S border for two reasons. He comments “Systems that divide people into ‘valuable’ and ‘less-valuable,’ are warping, destructive and causes the destruction of all of the good things people have in them. It brings out the worst.”