Jessica Rothe Says Horror Lets Her Go Places No Other Genre Will and "Beware Boiuna" Proves It

By Klep Napier | Wearecritix.com

I have had a lot of conversations with actors about why they do what they do. Why they choose the projects they choose. What draws them to certain characters over others.

But sitting down with Jessica Rothe and Kiana Madeira ahead of the October 2nd release of Beware Boiuna, Jessica said something about the horror genre that stopped me mid conversation and made me think about it differently than I ever had before.

She said horror, with the right script and the right director, allows an actor to explore what it means to be human in ways that drama and comedy simply cannot reach. That horror audiences agree to jump on the ride with you. And because of that agreement, the emotional stakes can go to places that no other genre will permit.

She is absolutely right. And Beware Boiuna is the proof.

Horror Is Not Where You Go to Scream. It Is Where You Go to Feel Everything.

Jessica Rothe is known for characters who carry weight. Happy Death Day. Affection. Work that does not get talked about enough considering how consistently extraordinary it is. And when you ask her why she keeps gravitating toward that kind of role the answer is disarmingly honest.

She is an emotional person. A big walking ball of heart and emotion by her own description. And the characters that excite her are the ones who get to live fully in that emotional space without apology.

But here is what makes her take on horror so compelling. She does not see it as a genre where emotion is a byproduct of the scares. She sees it as a genre where emotion is the entire point.

"The horror audience agrees to jump on this ride with you," she told us. "And so you can take those emotions to the next upteenth level and really explore what it is to be a human in the most visceral, terrifying and beautiful way."

That last phrase is the one that stays with you. Visceral, terrifying and beautiful. Three words that do not usually appear in the same sentence. But they perfectly describe what great horror actually does when it is working at its highest level.

Ally Is a Survivor Who Fights Tooth and Nail

In Beware Boiuna Jessica plays Ally, a character who operates as both the emotional center and the beating heart of the story. Where Lena, played by Kiana Madeira, comes in guarded and closed off and difficult, Ally is open. Warm. The kind of person who asks questions nobody asked to be asked and refuses to stop caring even when caring makes everything harder.

Jessica described the women she has been fortunate to play across her career as survivors. As badasses who are going to fight for what they believe in and for the people they love. And Ally fits that description completely while bringing something different to it than any character Jessica has played before.

The film is directed by Mike P. Nelson, whose track record in horror speaks for itself.

Wrong Turn in 2021 showed a filmmaker uninterested in surface level scares and deeply invested in what fear does to people from the inside out. VHS/85 demonstrated his range. And his most recent work on Silent Night Deadly Night in 2025 confirmed what the genre already knew about him. Nelson is a director who understands that the most terrifying thing in any horror film is never the creature. It is the human being standing next to you when everything falls apart.

Based on the way Jessica and Kiana talked about this film it sounds very much like that same philosophy is driving every frame of Beware Boiuna. The way they described the jungle setting, not as a backdrop but as a force that strips characters down to their most fundamental selves, suggests a film that is using its mythology and its creature rooted in South American folklore as a vehicle for something far more human underneath.

Listening to both of them talk about their characters it becomes clear that this is not a film content to rely solely on fear as its engine. Based on everything they shared it sounds like Beware Boiuna is far more interested in what fear reveals about human behavior than in fear itself. What do we reach for when everything is terrifying? Who do we become? Who do we push away and who do we finally let in? Those seem to be the real questions the film is asking underneath all of it.

The relationship between Ally and Lena, the mythology surrounding the Boiuna and the pressure of the jungle on both of these women all create the kind of emotional intensity that Jessica described so perfectly. The kind that a more conventional genre would simply never allow.

That is the horror advantage. And if the way these two talked about making this film is any indication, Mike P. Nelson knows exactly how to use it.

Watch the full exclusive interview with Jessica Rothe and Kiana Madeira on the CritiX YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/vfEbb_Kcxok

Kiana Madeira and the Heroine You Are Not Sure You Are Supposed to Like

Kiana's Lena is a fascinating counterpoint to everything Ally represents. She comes into the film with one mission. Find her brother. Get out. Do not connect with anyone. Do not let anyone in. Do not feel anything you do not absolutely have to feel.

And yet the jungle has other plans for her.

Kiana described Lena's arc as a slow unraveling. A gradual opening of the heart that happens almost against her will through her relationship with Ally and through the experiences the jungle forces her to have. By the end of the film the weight of a lifetime of trauma, of parents lost, of feeling like she does not belong anywhere, finally begins to lift.

The two characters together create exactly the kind of dynamic that great horror thrives on. One character who feels everything and one who has learned to feel nothing. And the story of what happens when those two people are thrown into something terrifying together is ultimately a story about what makes us human.

Which brings us back to Jessica Rothe's argument.

Horror is not where you go to be scared. Horror is where you go to feel everything at once. And Beware Boiuna is making that case in the most compelling way possible.

Mark Your Calendar

Beware Boiuna arrives October 2nd. If you are a fan of horror that takes its characters seriously, that uses the genre as a vehicle for something real and human underneath the scares, this one belongs on your radar.

Jessica Rothe and Kiana Madeira are doing something special here. And the conversation we had about why they do it was one of the most genuinely thoughtful discussions about the horror genre I have had in a long time.

October 2nd. Do not miss it.

Where Hollywood Meets Fandom.

Interview conducted by Klep Napier, Founder, CEO and Editor in Chief of CritiX Media. MPA-Accredited Entertainment Outlet. wearecritix.com