Dakota Fanning’s ‘Vicious’ Fatally Flubs a Killer Premise

Polly acquires a mysterious field. On this field, she should put three issues: one thing she hates, one thing she wants, and one thing she loves. That’s the essential premise of Vicious, the brand new movie from writer-director Bryan Bertino (The Strangers) starring Dakota Fanning, and it’s extremely alluring. Immediately, it brings to thoughts a slew of questions. The place did the field come from? How does it work? What occurs should you fail to conform? And might a film truly repay one thing so terribly tantalizing?

Effectively, after seeing Vicious throughout its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025, we are able to reply that final one: no, it can’t pay all the things off. In truth, Vicious fails to reply nearly each query about its premise, as an alternative haphazardly throwing concepts at a wall that undercut and frustrate. Fanning is great, as one would possibly count on, however she’s handcuffed by a killer thought dealt with horribly.

As Vicious begins, we do get one reply, particularly how how Fanning’s character Polly will get the field. Quickly after, she learns the foundations, however what the movie lacks from there may be nearly all the things else. The field is principally its personal character; it claims its sufferer will die if Polly doesn’t comply, however it by no means fairly explains how or why that might occur. As a substitute, if the field doesn’t like what she’s doing, it actually telephones her to clarify itself, telling her precisely what it needs her to sacrifice, and it will probably even mislead her. In consequence, all cohesion within the film goes away. If the field is aware of what it needs, the place’s the drama? Why would we care about any of this if all the things is preordained? Why do we want a field in any respect if this curse can use the cellphone or TV to terrorize its victims? And if the field can lie, why would anybody belief it?

For almost all of the runtime, we merely watch Polly torture herself ad infinitum. It’s a minor spoiler, however even after she does precisely what the field needs her to do, the film retains going, bringing into query if any of this was truly value it in any respect. This all could be okay if we had some huge, overarching theme about sacrifice or love to think about, however there’s principally nothing there. Ultimately, the movie tries to shoehorn some sort of thematic sentiment, however by that point, we’re so annoyed about how all the things can, does, and can change from scene to scene, so it fails to stay.

There’s some disgusting gore all through, and in its finest moments, the movie permits us to consider what we’d do with the field. However more often than not, that’s when the cellphone rings, telling Polly precisely what to do, so any of that potential self-reflection or relatability goes away. As a substitute, we’re left with a superb lead efficiency in a maddening film that by no means delivers in the best way we’d hope.

Vicious had its world premiere at Unbelievable Fest 2025 and can debut on Paramount+ on October 10.

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