'Jessabelle' Trailer: The American Debut of 'Australia's Emma Stone'

She’s got bright red hair, piercing green eyes, a smattering of freckles, a maturity that belies her age, and critically acclaimed acting chops. Should it come as any surprise that newcomer Sarah Snook has already been dubbed “Australia’s answer to Emma Stone”?

Snook makes her American debut in the upcoming horror flick “Jessabelle,” where she plays a young woman recovering from a car wreck at her family home on the Louisiana bayou. There she discovers a spooky warning left by her deceased mother on a videotape, which leads her on to uncover family secrets, voodoo rituals, a gravestone with her name on it, and a dark, creeping figure out to get her.

While this is her first film in this country, the young Aussie is an award-winning veteran of the stage and screen in her home country. She won the 2010 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Actress for the television drama “Sisters of War” (fellow redhead Nicole Kidman won the same award in 1987). She made her feature debut in the controversial 2011 drama “Sleeping Beauty,” and showed her comedic side — and earned another AACTA nomination — in 2012’s “Not Suitable for Children.” Snook was also one of the five finalists for the role of Lizbeth Salander in David Fincher’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which eventually went to Rooney Mara.

Snook has plenty of acting experience, but the role in “Jessabelle” presented her with several new challenges. She spends the entire film confined to a wheelchair for starters.  Snook also performed her own stunt in which she was strapped down to the chair and pushed into a lake. But she told Time Out Sydney the strangest part for her was speaking like an American. She said, “Hearing myself with a Southern accent is just hilarious.”

As for all the comparison to “Spider-Man” star Stone, Snook admitted that she can see the similiarities but doesn’t quite understand why they need to be lumped in together. Snook said, “It’s a funny kind of thing, but… everyone has a different journey and a different path.”

Produced by Jason Blum (“Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious”) and directed by Kevin Greutert (“Saw: The Final Chapter”), “Jessabelle" opens on Aug. 29.