Vicious Director on Why Horror Movie Doesn’t Follow Its Own Supernatural Rules

Bryan Bertino’s latest horror movie Vicious marks his return to the genre after The Strangers. The movie stars Dakota Fanning as Polly, a woman whose life unravels after a mysterious stranger appears at her door. It explores shifting supernatural rules and psychological terror as a cursed box begins to distort her sense of reality.

Bryan Bertino sheds light on changing supernatural rules in Vicious

In his interview with The Direct at Fantastic Fest 2025, Bertino explained his creative approach to Vicious. He said he designed the film’s shifting supernatural rules to serve as a metaphor for unstable relationships. He stated, “So much about the movie is a metaphor for being in an unhealthy relationship,” adding that “part of what you end up seeing in those kinds of relationships is that the rules change all the time.”

Bertino elaborated that viewers experience the story through Polly’s perspective, learning which rules matter and which do not. He said, “You feel like you can’t win because you can’t. And the rules are going to change no matter how hard you fight.” The unpredictability within the narrative mirrors the instability of toxic dynamics, showing how “this evil wants to corrupt those things and is willing to keep going in different places, no matter what you do to try to get out.”

The movie begins with the line “I don’t want to be me,” which Bertino added after writing the original script. He explained, “When I wrote that line and added that beat, [it] crystallized kind of the story, and it became kind of like a touchstone for every draft that came after it.” The line became central to defining Polly’s identity and vulnerability. Bertino noted that the story explores “what the box chooses to abuse of who she is.”

Discussing recurring themes in his work, Bertino said, “I get very frightened by the unexplained,” emphasizing that Vicious channels the same dread of intrusion seen in The Strangers. The film premieres on Paramount+ on October 10, 2025.

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