A Salute to Director Rachel Talalay, a True Genre Pioneer

Rachel Talalay is , to date , the only womanhood to place a film inany of the major slasher enfranchisement . She also made a bona fide1990s fad classic , and has helmed sequence of several TV shows we be intimate ( includingDoctor Who ) . Talalay ’s latest feature , A sitter ’s scout to Monster Hunting , hit Netflix last month and enliven us to take a facial expression at her prolific career so far .

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting (2020)

found on Joe Ballarini ’s playscript serial , this Netflix Halloween release skew more overtly family - friendly than much of what Talalay has done in the past , but there are some familiar motifs , include a bugbear who deals in the up-to-dateness of nightmare . Babysitter ’s Guide is about a geeky teen who gets a gentle but much - needed shove toward discovering her inner badass , alongsideCG - enhanced monster havoc , eminent - schooling societal dramatic play , and an endearing subject matter that prioritise brainpower and commitment among friends above all else . ( And if you watch very carefully during the scene where the heroine ’s parent ring her from a Halloween political party , you ’ll spy a merrymaker crop as Freddy Krueger lurking in the background ! )

Tank Girl (1995)

This is plausibly the movie most hoi polloi link with Talalay first and first , with near reason : it ’s a play - as - hellcomic book adaptationbeloved for its feminist themes and has long since made up for its tepid corner - office take by becoming a cult sensation . It ’s set in the post - apocalyptic year of 2033 , when the world has used up nearly all its weewee ( thanks to a comet strike , not mood change somehow ) , with a sinister corporation run byMalcolm McDowellaiming to stomp out any Johnny open of endanger their aquatic monopoly . armoured combat vehicle Girl ( a memorably energetic Lori Petty ) is , of course , the corking insurgent in the Australian outback , and wo n’t back down , especially once she starts make a misfit immunity .

A then - unknown Naomi Watts Colorado - star ; you ’ll also see a then - strange Catherine Hardwicke in the credits as production designer ( on a movie where that chemical element decidedly stands out)—but there are also some big names . Stan Winston ’s squad handled the limited effects make - up for the film ’s mutant detail , and Courtney Love , then at the height of Live Through This - epoch Hole renown , assembled Tank Girl ’s raucous alt - rock soundtrack .

Ghost in the Machine (1993)

Karen Allen(Raiders of the Lost Ark ) ace in this horror tale that take the basic plot of Wes Craven ’s Shocker and give it a cyber - themed update which now , of course , looks hilariously dated . A computer maven / serial murderer known as the “ Address Book Killer”—because he literally select his victims from stolen name and address books — dies after a car accident , but he ’s zapped with lightning during lifesaving efforts . He ’s then born-again inside “ the meshing , ” which is n’t quite the cyberspace since he ’s able to locomote into anything that plug away into a socket .

Even if you exit that dicey plotting out of it , Ghost in the Machine is not a nifty movie — it mingle made - for - television receiver energy with startling wildness , and some curiously compose teenage character . But to Talalay ’s credit , there are some genuine nail - seize with teeth moments . The disembodied maniac ’s originative room of weaponizing electronics is impressive , and a proto - Final Destination suspense swell up anytime the type follow within grasp of a microwave oven , an colonnade plot , a railcar phone , a public - bathroom hand dryer … you get the idea .

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Talalay ’s directorial launching was this sixth film in the smash hit Nightmare on Elm Street enfranchisement — but she ’d really worked on every Nightmare film up to that distributor point , starting with an adjunct product manager credit on the 1984 Wes Craven original . Though every Nightmare film dips into the phantasmagoric , Freddy ’s Dead might be the most exaggerated instance , assure even in “ alert ” prospect when the characters locomote to a Twilight Zone interpretation of Springwood . Also notable : the motion-picture show ’s use of 3-D during a last - act succession explore the recess of Freddy ’s demented brainpower , in which we get to see Robert Englund out of his signature make - up for a alteration .

Talalay has a story credit alongside Michael De Luca ’s script , so she undoubtedly had some remark in making Freddy ’s numb an origin story for the gloved madman . It ’s unreadable if she had a hand in sequences like “ Freddy transforms into a homicidal picture game boss ” or the stunt casting of original Nightmare starJohnny Depp , as well as Roseanne , Tom Arnold , and Alice Cooper , but those are just the form of weird touches that raise this off - kilter incoming in a serial publication that had begun to feel creatively depleted long before 1991 rolled around .

The io9 Guide to Slasher Movie Monsters

Peggy Drood (Indya Moore) and Grand Guignol (Tom Felton) plot against children in A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting.

Peggy Drood (Indya Moore) and Grand Guignol (Tom Felton) plot against children in A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting.Photo: Justina Mintz/Netflix

Doctor Who

Talalay ’s feature of speech - picture resumé is n’t too extensive , but she ’s racked up a ton of TV recognition . In recent years , she ’s maneuver episodes of superhero shows like The Flash , Doom Patrol , and legend of Tomorrow , as well as Riverdale andChilling Adventures of Sabrina .

Of greatest note to io9 readers , however , is probably the fact that she guide seven Doctor Who episodes , all from the Twelfth Doctor geological era , start with the two - part season coda for the eighth series , “ Dark Water ” and “ Death in Heaven . ” She ’d return for the two - part season finale for the ninth serial , “ Heaven Sent ” and “ Hell Bent , ” and again forthe tenth , “ World Enough and Time ” and “ The Doctor Falls . ” Then , she manage the end ofthe Peter Capaldi erain the 2017 Christmas special “ Twice Upon a meter , ” which featured the historic launching of Jodie Whittaker in its final moments .

For more on Talalay — including how her very first movie gig led to her lasting friendship with John Waters ( he was the officiant at her wedding!)—check out this unforesightful visibility that Netflix put together out front of Babysitter ’s Guide . She also gets into her long chronicle with the Nightmare on Elm Street serial , explains what ( and sometimes who ) motivates her as a director , and gives some insight into her originative process .

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