This thriller is based on BA Paris’s novel The Breakdown, but it’s is way too obvious for its own good and doesn’t have much going for it in terms of performance or subtext. Frankly, the best thing about it is the location, a stunning medieval mansion called Elsing Hall in Norfolk with romantic moat, arched doorways, and lush gardens. Fittingly, the house serves as a major engine for the plot, with rumours of ghosts and property values both serving as possible explanations for the dramatic shenanigans.

In the story, decorative but drippy schoolteacher Cass (Minka Kelly) lives in this beautiful pile with her husband Matthew (Dermot Mulroney, strangely inexpressive) who does something vaguely defined in the energy sector. The couple are Americans who have moved in recently and are doing up the property, but they seem to have settled in comfortably with the local Brits; pretty Cass is also quite a favourite with her male secondary school students. One wet and stormy night, she drives home down the lonely lane of the title and sees a vehicle pulled over, but can’t quite make out who it is inside, apart from the fact that it looks like a woman. Instead of stopping to see if anything is wrong, Cass drives on home. This seed of guilt will blossom quickly into a sense of shame when it’s reported the next day that the woman in the other car was a local friend of Cass who was found murdered.

As the police investigate, and Matthew is called away often on business, Cass starts to believe someone is stalking her, phoning up and not speaking above a whisper, trying to drown her in the bath and so on. That, or she’s suffering from early onset dementia like her own mother; she always seems to be forgetting things her husband and her pal Rachel (Maggie Grace) insist they already told her. Director Jeff Celentano doles out jump-scares and spooky vibes with all the flair of an AI-assisted software package. At least there’s that moat to look at.

• Blackwater Lane is on digital platforms from 27 January.