It’s now been five years since Australian director Jennifer Kent burst onto the scene with her feature debut, ‘The Babadook’. Like Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out‘, ‘The Babadook’ is a rare breed of film, a directorial debut so supremely competent that it instantly became essential viewing for horror fans (and mainstream audiences, for that matter). Now, Kent is back in the spotlight as she promotes her second film, a revenge-driven thriller dubbed ‘The Nightengale’.
That promotional effort included an appearance at Sundance, during which Kent sat down for a chat with the folks at Bloody Disgusting. It was during that conversation that the director revealed that she is collaborating on an unspecified project with none other than Guillermo del Toro. The project is early enough in development that there was little she could say about it, but Kent nonetheless dropped some interesting hints:
“Look, we’ve got something on the boil. I’m not being secretive buy I’m not sure I can talk about it. It’s something scary and I really admire him and his work. I think he’s a true artist so I’m excited to know more. We’re in the early stages of that.”
Well, that certainly has the potential to be a match made in heaven. Del Toro, of course, is famous for humanizing the monsters in his films. This is not so dissimilar to Kent’s sensibilities, as the titular monster of ‘The Babadook’ serves as a metaphor for very human experiences of grief and motherhood.
But what could the two horror auteurs be working on? Kent doesn’t exactly say, but the obvious guess is a film project of some sort. Of course, if that is the case, the question then becomes who is doing what? Kent could be writing a script for del Toro to direct, but it could just as easily be her who takes the helm. After all, del Toro also has a history of producing films, often ones he has co-written.
Whatever the case may be, hopefully we’ll hear more soon. Be sure to check back with ScienceFiction.com for more on this exciting collaboration as it becomes available!
