NEED TO KNOW
This nanny is the stuff of nightmares.
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at 20th Century Studios’ The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, starring Maika Monroe as the seemingly sweet Peyton Flanders, a woman hired by suburban couple Claire and Michael Bartel (Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Raúl Castillo) to care for their baby.
But Peyton’s true motives have little to do with singing lullabies — much to the horror of the Bartels.
Though the movie is a remake of the 1992 film, which starred Annabella Sciorra and Matt McCoy as the couple and Rebecca De Mornay as the nanny, this update is no carbon copy, promises director Michelle Garza Cervera, who teases plenty of “shocking moments.”
Hulu/20th Century Studios
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“The studio gave me all the chances to recreate the whole thing and build a new story, new characters, with its own heart. I think that was the best way to honor the original, not try to redo it,” she says. “We build a whole different kind of thriller. It’s actually more of a slow burn.”
The setting moves from Seattle to Los Angeles, and Garza Cervera says the characters have different, more complex backstories.
Hulu/20th Century Studios
“Instead of having just a victim and a perpetrator, they’re both in gray areas,” she says of Peyton and Claire. “I love the kind of antagonists that you can, on a point, empathize with. So there’s a very interesting game, like yin and yang that happens between them.”
Garza Cervera says Monroe, a scream queen known for horror films like It Follows and Longlegs, was the perfect person to play Peyton: “She brings a very evil, contained tone to the film that I’m super proud of.”
Hulu/20th Century Studios
Winstead, also no stranger to thrillers thanks to her turns in Final Destination 3 and 10 Cloverfield Lane, “is the kind of actress that can completely transform for a role,” adds Garza Cervera.
The filmmaker says the two leads share a chemistry that gives their characters a multilayered dynamic: “It’s very interesting to see, because in a moment you even feel like they could be attracted to each other.”
Hulu/20th Century Studios
Though this script is “completely different” from the previous film, Garza Cervera promises some nods to the original (which also featured Ernie Hudson and Julianne Moore in one of her first major film roles). “Someone, if they watch this movie a couple of times, they’re going to find those easter eggs,” she says.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is on Hulu Oct. 22.
