If we’ve learned anything from horror films, it’s that you shouldn’t visit places with names like “Fairfield Academy.” A name like that, while technically “plain,” just stinks with casual creepiness — you know the damn place is haunted. And yet, Suki Waterhouse will be visiting Fairfield Academy to get into all kinds of spooky situations as a part of Seance, the upcoming horror flick from writer/director Simon Barrett.

Barrett is known primarily as a writer who collaborates with director Adam Wingard on contemporary genre classics like You’re Next and The Guest. While he directed the framing segment in horror anthology V/H/S 2, Seance will be Barrett’s feature-length directorial debut, based on a screenplay he wrote. While You’re Next and The Guest both complicated their more traditional genre trappings with elements of pitch-black comedy and social commentary, Seance sounds like a meat-and-potatoes capital H Horror film, with no strings attached. A new girl visits an all-girls school only to find it’s being haunted by a vengeful ghost? That’s a classic horror story right there! However, if we’ve learned anything from Barrett’s previous work, it’s that looks can be deceiving…

Barrett is developing the project with production companies Dark Castle Entertainment and HanWay Films. In their press release, HanWay Films Vice Chairman Peter Watson said, “You can literally hear the audience screaming when you read the script. Seance is the perfect film to start a collaboration with Dark Castle, our partners in all this spooky mayhem!” (Quick sidebar: Can every film exec use words like “spooky mayhem” more often? Thanks, Hollywood!) At the center of this “spooky mayhem”? Waterhouse, who’s quite used to centering offbeat genre fare like Assassination Nation and The Bad Batch. Dark Castle CEO Hal Sadoff says, “Suki Waterhouse is the perfect actor to bring this scary story to life,” and we tend to agree. She’s a powerful screen presence, and a collaboration between her and Barrett promises much to be excited about.

The official synopsis for Seance is below. For more on Barrett’s work, check out our interview with him and Wingard.