There are countless new horror movies you could watch this October as you prepare for Halloween, but only one of them had an “ant handler” on set.

That movie is Don’t Move, a new Netflix original about a woman, Iris (Kelsey Asbille), who tries to flee from her would-be murderer after being injected with a nasty dose of paralyzing serum. Early in the film, while her paralysis is still settling in, Iris attempts to hide within the roots of a massive tree, only for a colony of nearby ants to race up her arm, onto her face, and into her — well, you get the idea.

From directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler (with an assist from producer Sam Raimi), Don’t Move is a thrilling game of cat and mouse with a twist: the mouse loses control of its body and somehow has to outwit an increasingly unhinged cat.

Kelly Marcel never wanted to be a director. “I'm much, much happier sitting in my pajamas at home behind my computer screen,” she tells Inverse. And yet, here she is at a fancy hotel in midtown Manhattan on a Sunday morning, definitely not wearing pajamas, and answering questions about her directorial debut — Venom: The Last Dance.

Marcel talks like a writer, speaking in full, thoughtful sentences with barely an “um” or “like” in sight. After interviewing her for 20 minutes, it’s easy to see how she’s risen so quickly from an unknown screenwriter working at a video rental store in London to the secret weapon behind Sony’s most successful Spider-Man franchise (aside from the ones that actually feature Spider-Man). Now, as the Venom trilogy comes to a close, Marcel has made the leap from writer to director — with plenty of encouragement from her star and longtime conspirator Tom Hardy.

“It was a really wonderful thing to be able to see the last one through from inception to the finishing line,” she says. “It’s been an amazing journey.”

Of course, Marcel’s journey is far from over. After making her Hollywood debut with a sci-fi series she sold to Steven Spielberg, she’s spent the last 10 years building an impressive filmography that’s hard to define — from a Walt Disney biopic to 50 Shades of Grey — all while figuring out how to turn Spider-Man’s most famous villain into a superhero of his own. But with the franchise finished (at least, for now), what’s next for Kelly Marcel? To find out, we have to go back to the very beginning.