Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson has been tapped to direct the upcoming horror film Black Phone for Blumhouse and Universal. As reported by Deadline, Derrickson will also co-write the screenplay with his longtime collaborator Robert Cargill.

Mason Thames (For All Mankind) and Madeleine McGraw (Toy Story 4) are attached to star in the film, which is based on the novella The Black Phone by horror author Joe Hill. I have not read Hill's novel, but it features perhaps the greatest synopsis of any piece of fiction ever written.

From HarperCollins’ official website:

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . .

Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . .

Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .

John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead…

I cannot fathom what this film is going to be about and that only makes me more excited to see it. (I will be thinking about Francis the eight-foot-tall locust for the rest of the afternoon.) In addition to bringing us the flat-out breathtaking visual spectacle of Doctor Strange, Derrickson is a decent horror director with broad experience in the genre, including straightforward ghoul fests like 2012’s Sinister and the truly unique 2005 demonic courtroom thriller The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Judging by Derrickson’s past work and that mind-boggling synopsis, Black Phone could literally be anything, and I cannot wait for it to come out. For more horror news, click here to read about the upcoming remake of Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs from producer Jordan Peele.