Dakota Fanning has lengthy confirmed herself able to excelling inside all genres, and as a horror fanatic, I’m at all times enthused when she exerts her abilities on spookier tasks. It’s a style blessing certainly that Vicious, her big-screen successor to 2024’s The Watchers, is one other limited-location chiller that ramps up the scares, gore, and emotional dread. If solely her character’s story had been on the identical degree…
Vicious
Launch Date: October 10, 2025
Directed By: Bryan Bertino
Written By: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Kathryn Hunter, Rachel Blanchard, Mary McCormack
Ranking: Rated R for robust bloody violence, some grisly pictures, and language
Runtime: 103 minutes
Vicious, which made its world premiere throughout Incredible Fest’s twentieth anniversary, is the most recent from author/director Bryan Bertino, finest recognized for creepily invading our houses with 2009’s The Strangers. With that and later tasks, Bertino cemented his abilities behind the digital camera, and I’ve at all times discovered his directing abilities to be a step or two above his storytelling. That private critique stays constant all through Vicious. That mentioned, he employs such a enjoyable and expansive bag of horror magic methods that it’s simple to sit down again and benefit from the experience.
Cursed Field With Mysteriously Particular Guidelines? Examine
Dakota Fanning’s tattoo-covered Polly goes by way of each previous and present-day struggles, and her niece appears to be the one supply of sunshine in that darkness. So the very last thing Polly wants in her life is a bizarre and confused previous lady exhibiting up on her doorstep with a bandaged hand and a nondescript picket field of doom.
The film’s dread-laced arrange is laid out clearly: Polly will die if she would not appease the field’s necessities for the proprietor to supply up one thing they love, one thing they hate, and one thing they want, all earlier than an included ornate hourglass runs out. (And let me let you know, this field is a proper fickle bitch about its personal guidelines .) Earlier than Polly realizes it, the curse has been bestowed upon her, and it is the sort of curse that preys on private demons and skeleton-filled closets.
Actuality-Bending Chaos With Nerve-Rattling Sound Design? Examine
The movie’s soundscape is probably its most spectacular aspect, particularly as soon as the field begins destroying Polly’s sense of actuality with one incident after one other. It is as if each motion in Vicious was captured by a 360-degree array of microphones, from doorways unlocking, to Polly taking drags of a cigarette to the pores and skin being pierced. Not so unnerving when every is heard in solitary, however when the cacophonous bombardment of ringing telephones, nursery rhymes, screaming youngsters and slamming doorways units in, it is arduous to not begin squirming in discomfort.
Having watched Vicious in a packed theater with booming audio system, I retroactively discovered it astounding that Paramount Photos has nixed the movie’s theatrical launch instead of a Paramount+ debut. Bertino, sound designer Chuck Michael and the remainder of the staff put a ton of devoted effort into making the film as a lot of an aural horror as a visible one, and it is a disgrace that almost all of dwelling viewers members will not get that very same pulse-pounding expertise.
Dakota Fanning Excellence And Tons Of Horror Tips? Examine
If anybody questioned this earlier than, let’s make it official now: Dakota Fanning is a Scream Queen. Her efficiency in Vicious is superb, as she provides an emotional layer to the character that does lots of work filling out Polly’s deliberately obscure backstory involving her varied relations – who every find yourself making appearances in a technique or one other. With one other actor within the position, I would simply be watching to see what wacky shit occurs subsequent, however Fanning makes it simple to empathize with the protagonist throughout her plights.
What an array of plights and frights it’s, too. Bryan Bertino throws a ton of beloved horror stunts and gags on the metaphorical wall in Vicious, and most of them stick. I am a sucker for evil mirror reflections and when gradual digital camera pans are used to disclose pure madness, and people are simply two of actually dozens of enjoyable and freaky components that I could not get sufficient of in Vicious.
Absolutely Fleshed-Out Story And Persistently Logical Character Conduct? Not So A lot
For all of the hints and breadcrumbs unfold all through the movie, and for all that Dakota Fanning’s efficiency helps, Polly’s story leaves audiences with maybe too many unanswered questions for her story to really feel absolutely cohesive. I am completely high-quality with not having a feature-length origin story in regards to the field itself, and I do like when issues are open to interpretation, however I am much less keen on feeling like I missed out on necessary information.
As nicely, Polly’s habits all through the movie veers from naturally comprehensible to completely anti-intuitive, with an excessive amount of time spent watching the hourglass’ sand drip down whereas questioning why it is all taking place. There is a scene past the midpoint the place Polly gripes about not understanding what the field needs, regardless of having a fairly good concept. It is a film second for positive, however perhaps not one thing an actual individual would do.
There’s not all that a lot to chew on after it is throughout with, and I do want the story would have utilized the snowy setting a bit extra. All in all, although, Vicious is a best hits of horror scares and jolts that may have viewers screaming, gasping and guffawing with malicious glee.