New Line Plans to Remake Horror-Comedy Housebound

New Line has snatched up the remake rights to the New Zealand horror-comedy Housebound, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The film’s writer and director Gerard Johnstone will produce the film, but another filmmaker will step in to direct the project. A writer is currently being sought.

Morgana O’Reilly stars in the original film as Kylie Bucknell, who is forced to return to the house she grew up in when the court places her on home detention. Her punishment is made all the more unbearable by the fact she has to live there with her mother Miriam — a well-intentioned blabbermouth who’s convinced that the house is haunted. Kylie dismisses Miriam’s superstitions as nothing more than a distraction from a life occupied by boiled vegetables and small-town gossip.

However, when she too becomes privy to unsettling whispers and strange bumps in the night, she begins to wonder whether she’s inherited her overactive imagination, or if the house is in fact possessed by a hostile spirit who’s not particularly thrilled about her return.