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  • 1 hour ago
I’m always impressed when a horror film’s sound can provoke visceral audience reactions as successfully (or more so) than the visuals, and The Strangers helmer Bryan Bertino’s 2025 movie release, Vicious, is indeed one of those movies. Currently streaming after originally being set for theaters, Vicious puts Dakota Fanning’s Polly in the middle of a single-location nightmare, and one of Bertino’s smartest moves here (beyond the A+ casting) was limiting the music to match the narrative, so that Fanning and the sound design take center stage.
Transcript
00:00Look, something like her gagging is all Dakota, and it is all, you know, her being willing to push herself
00:09way farther than I, even when I wrote it, I had imagined that she would be willing to go.
00:15And, you know, you almost, you know, I ended up gagging on, off screen, like, because I, it was so,
00:24like, it felt so real, and, like, you're almost like, we should give her a safe word because we won't
00:29be able to tell.
00:30But, like, yeah, she was so committed from the beginning that it really opened up the doors of what we
00:38could do as filmmakers because she knows herself and knows what she's capable of.
00:48And that, you know, you could have her breaking down, sobbing, and then instantly turn, you know, on a dime
00:55or then start to choke and, or sob, and, and then, and then I call cut and then we're ready
01:02to go again.
01:02And it was, it was such a gift to have somebody so committed.
01:07And, and I think that that really comes through when people watch the movie.
01:10That's, the gagging is, honestly, I don't like to listen to people choke.
01:16So I think that might be, I have a really bad gag reflex.
01:20I, you know, I watch everything now.
01:24I've, I've, over the course of my career, I've cut off enough.
01:28I've, I've, I've stabbed people.
01:31I've, there's not much anymore that actually bothers me in the same way.
01:38And so I don't know.
01:40I mean, I think, I think I end up reacting more to the moments that I find that feel the
01:45purest.
01:46Like those are the, you know, if I'm going to tear up or, or get emotional at my monitor, it's
01:53usually from, you know, like her on the phone with her dad and hearing his voice for the first time,
02:01like grabbed me in a way.
02:04Like, even every time we were watching it, it was just like the, the feeling that that would elicit for
02:10a person, I think would be a pretty terrifying and emotional moment.
02:15Like those.
02:16Like those.
02:19Like...
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