From The Strangers to Vicious: Bryan Bertino on Fighting for His Voice and Why Indie Horror Will Win
Bryan Bertino, the writer-director behind the 2008 home-invasion film The Strangers, says that making that indie debut set him up for a career of creative battles. Since then, he has kept working on independent horror: he wrote and produced the sequel to The Strangers, and later made Mockingbird (2014), The Monster (2016), The Dark and the Wicked (2020) and the 2025 film Vicious, which had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest and stars Dakota Fanning and Kathryn Hunter.
- Career lessons from The Strangers
- Music, tone and filmmaking metaphors
- Characters and personal themes in Vicious
- Why he sees indie horror pushing the genre
- Where to watch Vicious
Career lessons from The Strangers
Bertino’s first film, The Strangers (2008), was a low-budget thriller that later gained a cult following. The movie was described as being loosely inspired by real crimes, as noted on this Screen Rant piece.
After that debut, Bertino said the main lesson he learned was that his career would require ongoing effort to protect his creative voice. He put it plainly: “It’s always been a battle for me, because I’m trying to do certain things — I’m not saying they’re better or worse than what other people are doing, but I have a voice,” he said. “Having to fight for it… I learned it with The Strangers, and continue to learn it. Strangers is something I’m always going to be grateful for, but it also was an early hint at what was to come, in terms of fighting battles in order to get my movies in front of audience members in their purest form.”
Music, tone and filmmaking metaphors
Bertino often uses musical language when talking about movies. For Vicious, he said the intent was to create a wall of sound like Phil Spector, and he compared some found-footage horror to “a punk rock album” because of how those films break rules and convey emotion with fewer tools. He also compared stories that share a title but differ in approach as being “a little bit like songs that had the same words in the title, but are just completely different.”
He listed musical storytellers he admires: “Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Bruce Springsteen — they tell beautiful stories in a few words.” Those references help explain the kind of pacing and economy he aims for in his character-driven horror.
Characters and personal themes in Vicious
Vicious centers on Polly, played by Dakota Fanning, who receives a mysterious box from a stranger played by Kathryn Hunter. Bertino has said elements of the story reflect his own experiences — specifically, Polly’s struggles mirror his battles with anxiety and panic attacks. He framed the film as a grounded character piece: “’Cause you don’t have to believe in ghosts or evil boxes. But if I can, for an hour and 40 minutes, make you think What would happen if this did happen? then you can end up falling into its world.”
Accordingly, Bertino structured the film around Polly’s relationships with her mother, sister and niece, aiming to keep the supernatural anchored in everyday life. He also referenced older stories with similar premises, including the Twilight Zone episode “Button, Button,” when discussing the film’s ideas. For background, see the episode entry on Wikipedia.
Why he sees indie horror pushing the genre
Bertino said his tastes don’t always match what major studios aim to make, and as a result he’s generally chosen to work independently. He argued that horror is a genre uniquely driven by independent filmmakers, noting that small-budget films can shift studio trends over time. He said, “Somebody right now is making a $50,000 horror movie that’s going to blow people away and change the arc of where the studios go for the next five years.”
Studio vs. audience
He also expressed a view on how studios and audiences are sometimes seen differently: “I think studios in general have a feeling of what audience they want more than what audiences want,” he said. That perspective helps explain why he prefers to keep his projects independent when possible.
Where to watch Vicious
Vicious had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2025. It is now streaming on Paramount Plus and is available for purchase on digital platforms.
