Lauren LaVera and Darren Lynn Bousman on Queering Extreme Horror With ‘Twisted’ [Interview]

“I’m a queer woman, and I struggled with my queerness at a young age,” Lauren LaVera tells Dread Central while discussing her latest film and major studio debut, Twisted.

Reflecting on her own experiences and how they informed her performance, LaVera points to her role as Paloma in the recent extreme horror film from Saw franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman, now available on VOD via Republic Pictures.

“When I started having the courage to announce my queerness, it wasn’t accepted in a way that I might’ve appreciated.”

In the film, she plays one half of a central queer relationship that unfolds amid the movie’s surgical brutality. For LaVera and Bousman, how that relationship was portrayed, and the visibility it offered, was a considered part of the film’s approach.

And her character’s confidence stood out to her, even on the page. “I loved the fact that Paloma was so unabashedly queer and so uninhibited and just so unapologetic. I wish that I had known her growing up. I think she might’ve brought me out of my comfort zone much younger.”

She describes the role as therapeutic.

“It was certainly therapeutic for me. I did feel a duty to tell this story as truthfully as possible,” she says, adding that she approached the relationship no differently than any other on-screen romance. “I wouldn’t approach this love connection any differently than I have in the past with hetero love connections. The love is exactly the same.”