Lockwood & Co. Teaser: Ghostbusting Gets A Deadly YA Twist In A New Series From Joe Cornish

With "Attack The Block," writer-director Joe Cornish brought an alien invasion down to the streets of South London. Nearly a decade later, he helmed "The Kid Who Would Be King," a fantastical coming-of-age tale where the weight of Arthurian legend rests on the shoulders of a middle-school boy. After taking sci-fi and fantasy in surprising new directions, Cornish is back, with his sights set on the world of the paranormal. The latest addition to Netflix's growing YA library is "Lockwood & Co.," an adaptation of the supernatural novels from Jonathan Stroud.

Like the novels, the eight-episode series follows the story of a powerful young psychic named Lucy, who joins a teen ghost-hunting agency in a world already overrun by paranormal activity. So other than a crew of teenage ghost detectives, what sets this ghost story apart from others?

In a recent chat with Empire, Cornish mused that while ghosts tend to be frightening, they aren't exactly a tangible (no pun intended) threat: "[A ghost] can make you jump or it can scare, but in terms of actual physical threat, movies sometimes struggle." This is where "Lockwood And Co" diverges. In this story, a single touch from a ghost is deadly. This gave Cornish something very exciting to work with:

"Suddenly, you're in a new kind of ghost story, where you can arm yourself against a ghost and use skill and intelligence and tactics to outsmart it."

Armed with ghost-fighting tools and a metric ton of courage, Lucy Carlyle (Ruby Stokes), Anthony Lockwood, (Cameron Chapman) and George Karim (Ali Hadji-Heshmati) will take to the streets to investigate the many ghosts haunting London. If you're already aching to see the kids in action, Netflix has recently released the first clip from the upcoming series, which you can check out below.