MPI Media Group has acquired domestic U.S. rights to Emelie, a gripping new psychological thriller and the first feature from prolific concert film and short film director Michael Thelin.

The film, produced by Andrew D. Corkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene and We Are What We Are) will receive a release under the company’s elevated genre label, Dark Sky Films, who are behind some of the most critically-acclaimed horror in recent years, including Deathgasm, Southbound, and We Are Still Here.

A hit at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, Emelie will receive a theatrical release in early spring of 2016.

In Emelie, director Michael Thelin and writer Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck have taken an everyday experience – a couple handing their kids off to a babysitter – and crafted an original, nail-biting thriller.

The Thompsons, a loving family living in a peaceful suburb of Buffalo, New York, are the definition of wholesome American normalcy. When their regular babysitter can’t make it, Dan (Chris Beetem) and Joyce (Susan Pourfar) turn to her friend Anna (In America's marvelous Sarah Bolger) to watch their three children while they go out to celebrate their anniversary. At first, the young woman seems like a dream come true for the kids, as she allows them to play with things that are usually off-limits. But, as her behavior becomes increasingly odd, the frightened kids soon realize her intentions are dark and twisted – and that she may not even be "Anna" at all.

MPI’s Greg Newman says of Emelie, “With his first narrative feature, Michael Thelin proves to be a consummate craftsman, delivering a mature and thoroughly chilling and disturbing thriller that will stay with viewers long after it’s over.”

Watch this absolutely sinister trailer that'll chill your blood frozen: