Trapped With the Past: Director Martín Mauregui Discusses Shudder’s Crazy Old Lady Trapped With the Past: Director Martín Mauregui Discusses Shudder’s Crazy Old Lady

The psychological horror film Crazy Old Lady, executive produced by J.A. Bayona and written and directed by Martín Mauregui, is set to premiere on Shudder on February 27, 2026. Starring Spanish cinema legend Carmen Maura alongside Daniel Hendler, the film follows a seemingly simple caregiving favor that spirals into psychological terror over the course of one night.

Ahead of its streaming debut, Mauregui spoke with Temple of Geek about the film’s emotional core, its use of music and memory, and the complex humanity at the center of its aging protagonist.

The Emotional Core of Crazy Old Lady

At first glance, Crazy Old Lady presents itself as a quiet character study, following an aging woman, a strained relationship with her daughter, and the slow rhythms of daily life. But beneath its stillness, Martín Mauregui’s film carries something deeper: memory, regret, and the fragile emotional distances that can grow within families over time.

Speaking with Temple of Geek, Mauregui reflected on how the film’s emotional tone emerged from its earliest stages, particularly through music, which he says was present in the story from the very beginning.

“It was something that started from the beginning. Those songs were already in my imagination. I felt they could be part of Alicia’s childhood, part of the younger years she shared with César.”

Carmen Maura in Martín Mauregui’s CRAZY OLD LADY.
Courtesy of Shudder. A Shudder Release.

Music as Memory in Crazy Old Lady

Music in Crazy Old Lady does not function simply as atmosphere. Instead, it becomes a bridge between past and present, evoking moments Alicia can no longer fully access but still carries within her. One of the songs referenced in the film comes from Argentine singer-songwriter Sergio Denis, whose work holds strong cultural resonance.

“He was a very well-known singer in Argentina. I thought that song could belong to Alicia’s youth.”

That sense of lived history, of experiences that precede what we see on screen, is woven throughout the film’s emotional landscape.

Alicia and Laura: Distance Within Family

Early in the film, Alicia’s daughter Laura appears emotionally distant, and Mauregui notes that this estrangement is rooted in repeated experiences rather than a single moment. He explains that Laura has likely lived through similar situations before, which is why Alicia is already under the care of a nurse and why Laura begins the film pulling away from her mother in a way that feels both irresponsible and deeply human.

That balance between responsibility and humanity sits at the heart of Crazy Old Lady. The film avoids easy judgment, instead observing how love and fatigue can coexist, particularly when caring for an aging parent becomes emotionally overwhelming.

Carmen Maura and Daniel Hendler in Martín Mauregui’s
CRAZY OLD LADY. Courtesy of Shudder. A Shudder Release.

Carmen Maura as Alicia

Casting played a crucial role in shaping the film’s authenticity, particularly in the central role of Alicia, played by legendary Spanish actress Carmen Maura. Her performance anchors the film’s emotional tension, moving fluidly between vulnerability and menace as Alicia’s behavior grows increasingly unpredictable. Through Maura’s presence, the character becomes both unsettling and deeply human, allowing the film’s psychological horror to emerge from recognizable emotional truth rather than spectacle.

A Film About Aging and Horror

Through restrained storytelling and emotionally precise performances, Mauregui’s film blends psychological horror with deeply human drama, inviting audiences to sit with discomfort rather than resolve it.

In Crazy Old Lady, aging is not presented simply as tragedy or sentimentality, but as a destabilizing force that reshapes identity, relationships, and perception itself. The result is a film where terror emerges not only from circumstance, but from the erosion of memory and autonomy.