The last film that you likely saw with Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ writing credit on it was Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho – a psychological thriller that, in its final reel, delved into something approaching slasher territory. The BAFTA-winning screenwriter burst onto the scene with her work on Sam Mendes’ war movie 1917, and after teaming up with Wright, her next credit is a solo screenplay on a very different kind of serial-killer tale – The Good Nurse, brought to the screen by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm. It tells the true story of Charles Cullen, here played by Eddie Redmayne, a nurse who killed swathes of patients in New Jersey across his 16-year career – possibly the most prolific serial killer in recorded history. Jessica Chastain stars as Amy Loughren, a fellow nurse who begins to suspect that her unassuming co-worker might be behind a spate of mysterious patient deaths.
Speaking to Empire in the Glass Onion issue, Wilson-Cairns opened up about heading back to killer-thriller territory after Last Night In Soho. “I was adamant I wasn’t going to write another serial-killer movie,” she admits. But with The Good Nurse, she was able to explore the wider implications of what made Cullen’s killings possible. “It’s about systems failing people,” she says. “In this case it’s healthcare systems, but systems failing us is very universal.” Ultimately, she found a medical metaphor for what Cullen did. “The most terrifying thing about this story is that you could replace Charles Cullen with a virus. He’s this entity that wants to kill, and he was passed on from place to place.”
While The Good Nurse isn’t due to arrive on Netflix until 26 October, it’ll be hitting the UK earlier that month – screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2022 in association with Empire (yes, us!) on 10 October. Find tickets at bfi.org.uk, on sale from Tuesday 13 September.
Read Empire’s full The Good Nurse story in the October 2022 issue, on sale now and available to order online here.