Singer. Songwriter. Fashion designer. Scream queen?

Sounds like Mandy Moore, who first entered the spotlight as a teen pop star in the late 1990s, is determined to be all of the above. And she's going to take her shot at the horror genre with the help of Buried screenwriter Chris Sparling.

Sparling will direct Moore and actor Rodrigo (300, Che) Santoro in Falling Slowly, a supernatural thriller about a couple who find themselves living in an apartment haunted by a dark presence. No word yet on what the dark presence is or if Sparling, who makes his directorial debut on the project, also wrote.

If he directs half as well as he writes, this could be great. Shawn and I dug Buried a lot. The script also earned Sparling a National Board of Review award for best screenplay. But making the transition from writer to director isn't always easy. Just hang back with Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive if you doubt what I say.

As for Moore and Santoro? What knows. With the right script and right director, anyone can be good. I'm not knocking their previous work. I just have no opinion.