With The Hunger Games finally hitting cinemas this weekend, we can already look forward to seeing more of Jennifer Lawrence – an Oscar nominee by the age of just twenty – later this year, this time in a straight-up horror, House at the End of the Street.

Director Mark Tonderai has been speaking with EW about the film, and along with that interview also comes our first look at Lawrence in the film as the lead female, who stumbles into a nightmare of terror when she and her mother (Elizabeth Shue),

“move in next door to a house that was the site of savage murders years ago, only to learn that the young man whose family was slaughtered (Max Thieriot, Chloe, My Soul to Take) still lives inside. He and Lawrence strike up a friendship that starts to edge toward romance, but then she discovers some twisted secrets.”

Tonderai teased some more details about the film, so this is your spoiler alert: If you don’t want to read them and just want the bare bones of the plot, just scroll on down to the image below. You can probably see it right now without even scrolling.

*Spoiler-ish alert*

“Thieriot plays a 21-year-old who lingers in the house against the wishes of the other neighbors, who would rather forget both him and his family’s horrific history. “Since he lives in this house and is driving down people’s home values, he’s very ostracized in this town,” Tonderai says. “The murder was committed by his sister, and she disappeared into the woods. There’s this rumor she still lives in the woods. People have seen her, and she’s insane. But is she out in the woods? And if she is, how does she feel about her brother getting involved with somebody else?”

Lawrence is one of the few people who view Thieriot’s character sympathetically. She has some family history she’d like to escape too, though it’s not nearly as creepy.

“She’s a high school kid, about 17, and they’ve just moved into this new area,” Tonderai says. “Her father was in a rock band and was never around. The mother, in the early part of her life, was always out on the road with her husband taking drugs and getting drunk.  When she cleaned up and they got divorced, she was always out working. Suddenly, she thinks she wants to engage and be a parent, but at this point her daughter is becoming a woman and has been left to herself for a long time. She rejects these overtures of motherly love.”

Part of the story is about the damage bad families can cause. “I wanted to talk about how a parent’s love can help us or hinder us in becoming the people we are,” the filmmaker says. “It’s very much about a girl who’s becoming a woman, but her mother still feels she can do an audit on her life.  The daughter is rebelling against that.  She’s the petulant daughter, and [Shue] is the mother who doesn’t understand.””

The film is based on an original short story by Jonathan Mostow (director of U-571 and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), with a screenplay written by David Loucka (Dream House).

House at the End of the Street is set to debut in the US on 21st September, and though it hasn’t got a UK release scheduled yet, it’s no doubt just a matter of time, particularly with Lawrence getting more and more recognition as the years go by.

The actress can of course currently be seen in cinemas in Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games, which was officially released today after an advanced night of screenings last night. And now, here’s your first look at Lawrence in the upcoming horror. (It’s a little grainy, but a hi-res image will no doubt surface soon.)