Beware Boiúna Stars Madeira & Rothe on Snake Horror, Stunts & More

Posted in: Horror, Interview, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: Beware Boiúna

Beware Boiúna Stars Madeira & Rothe on Snake Horror, Stunts & More

Kiana Madeira (Fear Street) and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) spoke to us about their latest Lionsgate snake horror film, Beware Boiúna.

Published Sun, 27 Sep 2026 14:33:10 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Beware Boiúna stars Kiana Madeira and Jessica Rothe reveal what drew them to Lionsgate’s Amazon-set snake horror film.
• Jessica Rothe breaks down the wild botfly extraction scene, praising the gory prosthetics and visceral practical effects.
• Kiana Madeira opens up about muddy jungle stunts, claustrophobic falls, and relying on her stunt double for brutal terrain.
• Madeira and Rothe explain how Beware Boiúna built snake suspense on set with practical cues before VFX created the monster.

Kiana Madeira (My Adventures with Superman) and Jessica Rothe (Pathetic Fallacy) have become powerhouses in horror, leading their own respective franchises in Fear Street and Happy Death Day, bringing their credibility to the Mike P. Nelson (Silent Night, Deadly Night) snake horror movie Beware Boiúna for Lionsgate. The film goes deep in the Amazon, where a medical mission spirals into a fight for survival when Boiúna, a colossal ancient predator, awakens to reclaim her domain. In the jungle where nature holds absolute power, she decides who lives and who dies. Madeira and Rothe spoke to Bleeding Cool about filming in the Amazon, the infamous botfly-extraction scene, and jungle stunt work.

Beware Boiúna Stars Kiana Madeira and Jessica Rothe on Surviving the Amazon, While Battling a Larger-Than-Life Snake

Bleeding Cool: Thank you for joining me, Jessica and Kiana. What intrigued you about 'Beware Boiúna?'

Rothe: You know, there were a lot of incredible things when this script (from Nelson and Alan B. McElroy) arrived in my inbox that got me so excited. Number one, getting to shoot in the Amazon, a bucket list item, not on a soundstage, in the heart of the jungle, which felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Number two, Mike P. Nelson- what a brilliant director and creator- and meeting him in person: he is so kind, collaborative, and wonderful, which is hysterical because his brain is so dark and twisted. Number three, the amazing cast. Kiana is such a beautiful, effortlessly intriguing, and physically badass performer, and then we have Logan Marshall-Green, who, I mean, come on! It really doesn't get much better than that. As we started filming, it just kept getting better and better with each new addition to the cast, and the crew was amazing.

Madeira: You said that perfectly.

Rothe: Thank you. It's true.

Two-part question: First, Jessica, how fun was it to film that botfly scene? Second, Kiana, what was the most difficult nature-related stunt you did? I imagine between the mud and falling through those woods there, can you walk me through those scenes?

Rothe: Yeah, the botfly was so much fun. [My character] Alli was super into it, and so was Jessica [laughs]. I think all my Dr. Pimple Popper-isms got activated [Madeira laughs]. I was just so pumped about it, and our special effects crew did such an amazing job with the prosthetics and all the blood and pus seeping out, and I think it's going to be a really fun, visceral scene for people.

Madeira: It was for me; when I watched it, I was like, "This is so crazy right now! It was a great scene." For me, honestly, when my character was falling in the woods, that was all Angie, my stunt double, doing the actual falling, and she is a badass. She's a champ. She's the best. I wouldn't have been able to do that, and she made it look so real. I was running through the woods and everything, but the actual falling- that was Angie. It was me in the mud and falling backward into the mud, and everything, so I think out of those two, the mud was definitely the most challenging, especially falling backward into it. Hitting it, I don't know why in my mind I thought it was going to fall into a pool of water, but it was so much thicker. It felt like an eternity to come back to the surface. It was going through; I don't know. It was just so thick, so it was, and I'm claustrophobic, so it was pretty scary for me, and then it was like up my nose and everywhere, but then when we were in the mud, it was pretty chill. I think falling into it was the hardest part.

What was it like trying to work in the snake scenes?

Madeira: Most of the snake, all of it, actually- the audience will see in the film was done in post-production, but we had an amazing team, including Mike, our director, and our visual effects team. They gave us practical things to look at, because they knew exactly where they wanted to place the snake in post. We had a huge HVAC tube, like a vacuum, going through the woods, so we knew what to look. There were rustling trees, so we'd have real-time reactions, and like assuming that we heard the snake over there, and like all these things to really help us with our reaction time.

Rothe: Another thing about this snake is she's so big that you're only seeing parts of her at a time, and that's so terrifying, because you can't even see the whole snake [laughs]. At the same time, if you want to, and so, by using the environment, by giving us all those visual cues, Mike and our incredible DP Nick (Junkersfeld) did such an amazing job building that suspense, building that fear, building the lore of Boiúna.

Beware Boiúna, which also stars Logan Marshall-Green, comes to theaters on October 2nd.

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