Universal Pictures’ remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing may have gotten the cold shoulder at the box office last year, but that isn’t keeping its star Mary Elizabeth Winstead from taking on more horror shows.

The 27-year-old looker has just signed on to star in director Daniel Stamm’s (The Last Exorcism) The Darkness, a loose adaptation of the Henry James novel “Turn of the Screw,” scripted by Megan Holley (Sunshine Cleaning).

The Darkness finds Winstead playing an American student, who while babysitting her tutor’s children in an English manor, comes to believe that they are being haunted by malevolent spirits. Production on the film will begin this summer in Europe.

Winstead will next be seen in director/producer Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Her creds include Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, Hideo Nakata’s The Ring 2 and the James Wong frighteners Final Destination 3 and Black Christmas.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is part of Clatto’s list of The 20 Hottest Women Working In Horror/Sci-fi Today.