“Vicious” (2025) focuses on thirty-two-year-old Polly Gibbons (Dakota Fanning), who seems to suffer from depression and has failed to launch. When a confused older woman (Kathryn Hunter) appears at her door, it is obvious that this movie takes place in a world that does not have “The Front Room” (2024) or “Weapons” (2025). Polly is kind to the older woman, who exchanges that good deed for a wooden box and an hourglass. The rest of the night, unusual events torment Polly with horrific visions. Stick with Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and skip “Vicious.”
Fanning is a talented actor who seems to be stuck in a rut that forces her to play characters that are vaguely defined and must face the unknown without losing themselves. She gives it her all and never phones in a performance. If you saw “The Watchers” (2024), you could be forgiven for thinking that not much separates the characters and even imagine it as an unofficial sequel. Both characters loathe themselves, but Polly is slightly different. She seems to suffer from depression and is unable to engage with the outside world in a tangible, sustained way. Well, an encounter with Hunter’s unnamed character should not fix that, but hey, it does.
Whenever Hunter appears in a film, it always feels as if you are in for a treat, but the trick is that the only treat in “Vicious” is her performance, especially the way that she can make her voice sound otherworldly and intimidating. She is such a tiny lady, which proves that size does not matter because she is probably the scariest aspect of “Vicious.” Her character seems to possess knowledge, which the box imbues, about Polly. Eventually the box’s other abilities are creating auditory and visual hallucinations.
Everytime that something strange happens, Polly screams and falls to pieces, which is reasonable, but dull to watch. Oh no, a figure leaps out at Polly. Rinse and repeat. The box ends up being a metaphor for very intense therapy so Polly can deal with her issues, but writer and director Bryan Bertino forget something crucial. The audience does not know anything about Polly so when a torment is introduced with a threat to someone that she loves, it is hard to get whipped up about it. Everything is theoretical. When the tube television (it is always a tube tv in horror) shows a vision of a loved one bleeding profusely, Polly’s reaction signals that it is not just the channel stuck on a horror movie, but someone that Polly knows. That means the viewer had to pay close attention to the conversation between Polly and the mysterious woman and the photos on the mantle to know that person’s identity. Tough luck if you did not. There are also a lot of assumptions that people are willing to do anything to save their family even if the family member is a child. Don’t tell Bertino, but if a horror movie kills a child, it only increases the movie’s credibility because the real world is a cruel place
“Vicious” is mostly about fearing the death of loved ones and being detached from them as a defense mechanism. It is a Christmas movie. Ho ho ho. The box has the effect of compelling Polly to a mostly sleepless night of action as she furiously tries to figure out how to stop the madness. The most unsettling scene is when she visits a neighbor (Klea Scott) and asks to borrow her phone. Scott stole the scene and actually imbued the movie with chills. Her work would fit right in with the “Smile” franchise among many others. It is a scene of shocking violence that is meant to dissuade Polly from involving anyone else and confronting herself. She must do something without help, which is how she has been able to sleepwalk through life without consequences up to this point. It feels like this movie heard about tough love and decided to try to stuff the concept in supernatural form.
Is “Vicious” interesting to watch? Not really. Horror is not just jump scares, blood, mutilation, death, grasping hands, loud music, mocking, cruel voices, doppelgangers and screams. People are desensitized if the horror onscreen is not tied intimately to themes that resonate with the characters. It is supposed to be psychological horror, but it becomes boring torture porn. Depression is not going to be cured if the depressed person’s life is threatened. The best part of “V/H/S Halloween” (2025) is when a character sees the writing on the wall about her fate, gives up and puts herself on the chopping block instead of engaging in a futile struggle to survive. People are tired. No character is developed enough to get invested in whether they live or die. If this movie was more fearless, Polly should have just stared at the older woman and hugged her in relief at the promise of dying that night. The most horrifying aspect is one scene where every phone is ringing in a house. Who still leaves their ringer on? Ack, they are calling to talk to me about my car insurance. Noooooooo.
In the end, “Vicious” tries to tie up loose ends and offer some suggestions on how the box works like an immersive Rorschach test. At this point, the movie kind of goes off the rails and feels like shameless dry begging for a sequel. Depending on the person’s mental health diagnosis, it may have a different effect on the holder. Or Bertino wanted to increase the body count before the credits roll. Instead of enhancing the storyline, it muddies it and has the effect of worrying that the movie is meta. It is not just the older woman and Polly caught up in endless turmoil, but the audience who cannot escape.
The mythology seems like a shameless mash up of “The Ring” (2002) and “The Box” (2009) though the box’s purpose is completely different in “Vicious.” Horror movies cannot live on atmosphere alone, and all the good acting in the world cannot save it. Devyn Nekoda, who plays Polly’s sister’s neighbor, Tara, is one of the perfectly decent people whom Polly seeks help from, and she is not given enough time to substantially contrast her character’s overlapping psychological traits with Hunter’s character and Polly’s. Nekoda does manage to be immediately sympathetic and intriguing.
Bertino sparked “The Strangers” franchise, and if “Vicious” has one lesson in common with his more successful earlier work, it is don’t be a Good Samaritan, do not answer your door and do not be alone. How does that resonate with the characters’ fear of death, their lack of emotional connection or commitment to their family, their inability to be functional adults? Not much if anything. Is this the new propaganda of “get married, ladies and do not become a crazy cat lady?” A cute cat makes an appearance in a hall and morphs into someone else. The only man is a sick spectre.
“Vicious” does not live up to the promise of its name. It is not so bad that it is good. It is just boring and wastes the talents of the actors. After the disorienting, visually arresting beginning in which viewers will be unable to tell the difference between up and down, it settles into a tedious, rhythmless story that will just leave its viewers puzzled and regretting that they did not choose something else to watch. People cannot live on solid production values alone.
