The House With A Clock In Its Walls Trailer Goes Inside Jack Black's Creepy Home

The House with a Clock in Its Walls isn't your typical haunted house film. 

Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg's production company Amblin Entertainment have rolled out the first trailer for the upcoming movie directed by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel), and the clip will play ahead of Spielberg's Ready Player One when it hits theaters this weekend.

The House with a Clock in Its Walls is based on John Bellairs' 1973 horror novel of the same name and tells the tale of the recently orphaned young boy named Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), who moves into his uncle Jonathan's (Jack Black) creaky old house that has a mysterious ticking in its walls. Lewis' curiosity about what rests inside the dilapidated home gets the better of him, and he soon discovers that his uncle is actually a witch — one who leads him through a winding hidden world of perplexing magic and heart-stopping dangers. The most terrifying of which is the house's clock that's meant to bring about the end of the world. 

The trailer establishes this premise, set against the lush backdrop of the home filled with stained-glass windows and massive bookshelves, and gives us glimpses of another very important character: Cate Blanchett's Mrs. Zimmerman, a fellow witch and Jonathan's best friend, who's sure to stir up trouble. 

Written by Supernatural series creator Eric Kripke, the movie also stars Kyle MacLachlan, Colleen Camp, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Vanessa Anne Williams, and Sunny Suljic. 

The House with a Clock in Its Walls will chime in theaters on September 21.