1 out of 5

Directed by: Bryan Bertino

Great sound design. Tom Schraeder’s score offers perfect low-key, minimalist creeps. But once you open your eyes and watch the movie… Vicious falls apart.

I admittedly have a problem with what we could call “interior lives” horror, which sort of got rebranded as “elevated” horror during the prime A24 years, but this stuff has always existed: the films where the ‘monster’ is one that stems from your own thoughts and fears. Now can that be done well? Of course, and it has “always existed” because it’s manifested in some very physical, visceral versions of those thoughts and fears – arguably any horror movie has some element of reflecting our own worst traits back at us. And even defining this more narrowly, where the spooky stuff leans into the surreal; where the narrator becomes an untrustworthy one because maybe it’s all in their head, it can still be effective, though the medium matters: I’d argue there are fewer movies that can work in that territory versus more immersive formats like books, or video games.

Vicious does a very particular spin on interior-lives horror that triggers my aforementioned bias: it announces itself early, and it defangs itself early; it makes it clear that there’s a lesson of some sort for our lead to learn, and essentially nothing else that happens around the character really matters. So if you extend that thought – you’ve removed any consequence for the character on other characters, or on anything around them – then the only thing you can get the viewer to care about is the lead themselves. Dakota Fanning throws herself into this part as Polly, single, jobless mum in her aimless early 30s, suddenly haunted / hunted by a puzzle box of sorts delivered at her doorstep, but writer / director Bryan Bertino, in wanting (perhaps) to make this as metaphorical as possible, and doesn’t really dive into Polly’s life beyond some broad indications of depression, and disaffection. Even this he “spoils” early by previewing a speech that’s key to her approach to life as the movie’s cold open: a mission statement about how she feels her life is pointless. Can we relate? Probably. But does that make us invested in whether or not Polly survives the box’s demands (delivered via ghostly voices on the phone) to put something she loves / hates / needs inside it? It’s an interesting inversion / spin of Richard Matheson’s Button, Button, for sure, but, again and again, Bertino undermines any stakes with this thing – incidents that occur around Polly reset themselves – and refuses to play into any kind of horror movie logic, such that figuring out what the box wants feels like we’re just at the whims of the writer, and not the story.

The movie’s effectively shot, and, as highlighted, has really great sound design. However, let it speak to how incredibly unengaging the story is that those aspects – which can be hard to nail consistently in horror; especially the music! – can’t rescue the film from its tedium.

I appreciate that this one was personal, and there are those with whom its broadness will lock into something specific; for viewers who kind of shrugged their way through Babadook and films of that ilk, though, it’s a big miss.