Allen Leech, who plays former chauffeur and present estate manager Tom Branson on Downton Abbey, is moving to the big screen for his latest role in the chilling British horror film In Fear.  The move will be in theatres on November 15 and was directed by Sherlock director Jeremy Lovering.

In the film, Leech plays Max, a local oddball who terrorizes a young couple when they get lost on their way to a music festival as it is becoming dark.

To keep the tension on set as real as possible, only Leech was given the full storylines so his co-stars Iain De Caestecker and Alice Englert would be realistically scared.

At first, the other actors weren’t quite sure whether to trust me or not,” he explains, laughing. I played the game that I didn’t know what was happening either. It was only in the last couple of days that they turned around and went, ‘You’re quite evil’. And that’s when they didn’t really hang around with me so much..

Allen Leech welcomed the chance to shed his nice-guy image from Downton Abbey.

Playing someone who’s so different from anything I’ve done before is really lovely, because you get to stretch yourself,” he says. “I got to go to a part of myself that, thankfully, I normally wouldn’t.

In Fear was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival this past January.  And according to imdb.com, there are only three cast members.

Since I don’t do scary movies, my fellow Downtonians will have to go in my stead to support Allen Leech in his new endeavor and report back how it was.