By MICHAEL GINGOLD

The actor seen in TV’s HANNIBAL, SLEEPY HOLLOW, AMERICAN GODS, HELTER SKELTER (as Charles Manson, pictured) and the TWIN PEAKS reboot is taking the lead in a big-screen tale of terror.

Blumhouse has announced that Jeremy Davies will take the lead of THE BLACK PHONE, which the company is producing for Universal release. Scott Derrickson will direct from a script he wrote with his regular collaborator C. Robert Cargill, based on Joe Hill’s short story. Derrickson and Cargill are producing with Jason Blum, and Hill is an executive producer; his tale first appeared in the 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS collection. Its synopsis goes: “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…” Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw were previously announced to co-star in THE BLACK PHONE.

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