The Horror That Lingered Beyond the Screen
The release of Vicious (2025) saw the audience prepare for a psychological horror for the ages, yet the cast of the movie had little idea that the film would haunt them for a long phase of their lives. Under the direction of Bryan Bertino, who is primarily recognized for The Strangers, Vicious, is not simply a movie about terror. It is about the fragile line between sanity and survival, and the intricate feelings of guilt and loss. What happened behind the scenes of the film was as haunting as the scenes of the movie.
The Story That Cut Too Deep
Vicious tracks the emotional and psychological journey of Ella (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she goes back to her childhood home to prepare and eventually attend the funeral of her sister who died under mysterious circumstances, only to find out that something dark and malicious and perhaps not quite human, still lives there. The film embodies the concept that sadness and grief can become a sentient creature that lives and breathes through the memories and regrets of the loser.
This is a film of emotional darkness, and the burden of realizing that vision fell on the shoulders of the cast and the crew. The director of the film Bryan Bertino is known for the isolation realism that he captures. Most of the scenes for Vicious were shot at a countryside estate studio that is literally cut off from the outside world. The isolation he intended for the film was given to the cast while filming.
Anya Taylor-Joy: Breaking and Rebuilding Herself
Anya Taylor-Joy is the center of the film “Vicious,” and many critics believe her role as Ella is one of her most captivating performances since “The Witch.” Always captivating, Anya became the very embodiment of fear in this film.
In an interview, she recalled Bryan saying: “Don’t play scared. Be scared.” This one sentence helped change the entire shoot for her.
Anya’s desire to preserve the character’s emotional realism and psychological intensity prompted her to forgo social interaction between takes and avoid her cast-mates, which she found even more isolating. She even described some mornings as terrifying, waking up to ominous whispers and unsure whether the voices were in the script.
The emotional intensity took its toll. After filming wrapped, Anya admitted she struggled to sleep for weeks, and that Vicious made her confront unresolved grief from her own past. Yet, she also credited the movie for helping her grow as an artist.
“It stripped me raw. But it reminded me why I love acting — to feel something real, even if it terrifies you.”
With Anya’s subsequent roles, including Vicious, their own shift in her image to ‘elevated horror’ was fully crowned. Anya’s offers from larger studios and ‘bigger’ horror films changed to taking ‘hand-to-mouth’ slower, reflective ‘bigger’ art, films where she felt she was ‘breathing again’ more fully.
Fear as a Mirror, The Director’s Vision.
Bryan Bertino is a brilliantly nuanced storyteller, who is one of the few to craft horror for the human condition rather than monsters. With Vicious, he sought to push that vision even further. He wanted the actors to feel the true psychological fear, rather than the performative, ‘faked’ fear. “I didn’t want jump scares,” Bertino explained. “I wanted the silence between breaths to do the work.” To induce that state, he made a set where sound and visuals were finely and deliberately controlled to be ‘off’, so that they were ‘manipulated’ to cause discomfort. The cast crew recalled moments when it was hard to differentiate if the sound was from the primitive woods outside or from the speakers set to ‘off’.
The method worked—but it also obscured the truth. Nights spent on set were especially eerie to the crew, as cinematographer James Laxton recounted. Anya also kept a diary to help herself work through the emotions she felt, encouraging the separation from her character, Ella. These pages were her therapy by the end.
The Supporting Cast: Pain, Paranoia, and Real Connection
Bill Skarsgård starred alongside Anya Taylor-Joy as her estranged brother, Lukas, who is tormented by guilt over their family’s trauma. Skarsgård, who previously played the terrifying role in It, viewed this role as an opportunity to transform his exploration of fear from the supernatural to the psychological and emotional.
“In It, I scared others. In Vicious, I scared myself,” he said in a post-premiere Q&A.
His on-screen relationship with Anya was charged with a powerful, almost primal, humanity, rather than romantic affection. Exhaustion was a bonding sentiment, as the two frequently remained on set after hours to run through their emotionally loaded scenes. So many critics were able to laud their window for the film in a raw, honest light because that was a factor in extricating the raw, critical, emotional core from the supernatural housing of the film.
However, the impact was evident. In the case of promotion, Skarsgård talked about how he needed a break from acting and how he needed to focus on “rebalancing.” Vicious was the type of film where he felt, “the kind of movie that doesn’t end when the credits roll.”
When the Cameras Stopped Rolling
After wrapping, the film left the cast in a heavy emotional state that they struggled to cast off. Anya described the final day of filming as “like escaping a fog.” Even the house where they filmed was so emotionally heavy that no one wanted to return for reshoots.
Crew members have since described how the emotional intensity on set sometimes resulted in conflicting reactions — tears, exhaustion, even a panic attack. Yet, it also fostered a sense of unbreakable solidarity. Everyone felt they were making something special — something painfully honest.
In Bertino’s case, he carried a cracked mirror. Bertino reportedly kept a memento from the set: a cracked mirror used in one of the film’s pivotal scenes. He said it symbolizes what Vicious meant to him — “a reflection that can’t be perfect anymore, but still tells the truth.”
The Aftermath: Fame and Fear.
When Vicious made its film festival debut, it wowed the audience. It was also the first opportunity to drive to the festival. it psychological depth, and emotional terror. the film quickly became a cult favorite. It was also the first opportunity to drive to the festival.
In the case of Anya Taylor-Joy, Vicious reaffirmed her status as one of the most fearless actors of her generation. It also made Vicious one of the most pivotal pieces in psychological horror. He was also the first opportunity to drive to the festival. He also attended the festival to drive the film to it.
Legacy: When Fear Turns Into Freedom
Vicious (2025) arrived at a lesson Torchman’s corpus describes best: When confronting the past, the monsters are not those hiding in the dark; the monsters are the dark that we carry within. In part, Vicious is a film dealing with the inner turmoil of its characters, with each of the actors connecting to their roles on a deeply personal basis. Anya realized the strength that comes with vulnerability; Skarsgård discovered peace embedded in pain, while Bertino learned to appreciate beauty in flawed characters.
Vicious was more than a horror film; it was a catharsis for its audience, its makers, and for everyone that has ever confronted their own ghosts. It is a testimony to the fact that the best horror stories are the ones that capture the healing.
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