When it comes to suspense, mystery or thrills, mood and tone are everything. If the characters on screen aren’t surrounded on all sides by deep encroaching shadows that could be hiding anything and everything just out of view, what’s the point?

This is something writer/director Scott Cooper has excelled at in most of his films. From crime dramas like “Out of the Furnace” and “Black Mass” to revisionist westerns like “Hostiles” and modern supernatural horror like “Antlers,” that feeling of a dark, unforgiving world keeping the heroes at arms-length from stopping the bad guy is present throughout.

As the writer for all but one of his films, who else would be a better figure for Cooper to champion when dealing with the dreary and disturbing underbelly of American culture than Edgar Allan Poe? It’s a near-perfect match.

Cooper’s newest film, “The Pale Blue Eye,” an adaption of a 2003 novel by Louis Bayard streaming on Netflix, is everything that works about a classic Poe story or poem — mystery and intrigue, gothic design wherever you look, seedy characters with something to hide and an overall feeling of death hanging over each scene.

Unfortunately, depending on what you’re looking for in a mystery thriller, that central investigation of whodunit is at constant odds with two other storylines that never seem to mesh. Despite a stellar cast and perfect visuals, “The Pale Blue Eye” is a particular type of story that won’t work for most audiences.

Set in 1830, West Point military academy is thrown into turmoil when a body is found hanging from a tree with his heart cut out and missing. Authorities call in former New York constable Augustus Landor (played by Christian Bale) to investigate the case.

Requiring someone who knows the comings and goings of the cadets that were close to the victim, Landor enlists the help of another cadet, a 21-year-old Poe (Harry Melling) to gather information. As the unlikely duo begins to unravel the mystery, they quickly discover there is far more than meets the eye at play.

The nature of the murder points toward the occult, with this line of investigation taking them to the Marquis family. The patriarch just happens to be West Point’s resident surgeon, Dr. Daniel Marquis (Toby Jones), and his daughter, Lea (Lucy Boynton), has caught Poe’s fancy, potentially jeopardizing Landor’s case.

Although neither the protagonist nor the figure the plot revolves around, Poe is by far the most interesting and entertaining person on the base, turning every interaction he has into a mini-theater performance that could unveil a vital clue or deliver some genuine laughs in an otherwise grim adventure.

Melling is one of the most underrated actors of his generation, coming from the “Harry Potter” films as a youth and transitioning into a variety of character actor work in everything from a Coen brothers western, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” to a mid-century miniseries about chess, “The Queen’s Gambit.” He gives the same effort here, diving head first into a fully realized portrayal of Poe that we have no way of knowing is true but want to believe it is.

As impressive as the look and feel of this is — rural New York in the dead of winter with bare trees, two feet of snow and hazy sunlight is perfect gothic atmosphere — the mystery does not bring about the feeling of terror as it should. With Bale as stoic and confident as always, his weathered detective Landor isn’t frightened or off-put by the terrible things he sees, so neither are we.

Instead, “The Pale Blue Eye” is an experience first and foremost, from one class of people dealing with another. With either generational military families or the uppercrust of New York in their way, it’s no surprise Poe and Landor are looked down upon and questioned throughout their investigation. How could they think one of the rich and/or powerful people be to blame?

As a precursor to even the precursors of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Cristie or Alfred Hitchcock, Cooper’s film is not your usual murder mystery. But if a bit of Poe-ful atmosphere is your cup of tea, this will get the job done.