Dakota Fanning shines in Vicious, but a disjointed story, weak scares, and dragged-out pacing make it a horror film that falls flat.
Writer & Director: Bryan Bertino
Genre: Horror
Run Time: 103′
Rated: R
Fantastic Fest Screening: September 19-22, 2025
Release Date: October 20, 2025
Where to Watch: Stream it on Paramount+
Horror thrives on atmosphere, tension, and the kind of scares that burrow into your head and refuse to let you sleep at night. Unfortunately, Vicious, directed and written by Bryan Bertino, doesn’t land on any of those fronts. Its setup could have easily lent itself to something chilling – a mysterious box, a ritual that demands sacrifice, and a woman unraveling as reality collapses around her – but what unfolds is a disjointed, frustrating experience that never manages to be scary, clever, or memorable.
Polly (Dakota Fanning, of Ripley) lives in quiet isolation, weighed down by strained relationships with her family, her boss, and just about everyone in her orbit. One evening, after returning home with groceries and catching up on a string of tense voicemails, she receives an unexpected late-night visitor (Kathryn Hunter, of The Front Room). Their encounter is awkward, ending with the visitor ominously declaring Polly would die that night. Left behind is a box with simple yet sinister instructions: place something you need, something you hate, and something you love inside it.
What begins as a strange ritual quickly unravels into a nightmare where reality bends and the people closest to Polly – her father, mother, sister, even her niece – appear as manifestations of a curse that taunts her with cryptic clues. With time running out, Polly must confront not just the darkness threatening her life, but the one she carries within herself.
The film’s biggest issue is its narrative structure. Vicious never feels cohesive, jumping from moment to moment without a sense of rhythm or escalation. Instead of building suspense, the story meanders, giving us scattered visions, fake-out scares, and family apparitions that grow repetitive rather than frightening. Every time it feels like the film is winding down toward an ending, it stretches itself further, sometimes for ten or fifteen more minutes, draining the little tension that was left.
The scares themselves are another misstep. Rather than inventive or unsettling, they rely on overdone horror tricks: loud stingers, shadows that vanish, and fake-outs you can see coming from a mile away. It’s the kind of horror language we’ve all seen dozens of times before, but here, it feels particularly uninspired, almost like the film was checking boxes rather than trying to get under your skin.
To the film’s credit, Dakota Fanning gives a strong performance. She is very obviously trying to play Polly in a way the screenplay doesn’t, making her believable even when the story doesn’t hold together. Her reactions to the visitor’s cryptic warnings or the unsettling calls from voices mimicking her relatives are the closest the film comes to generating unease. There’s also an interesting seed in the opening, Polly listening to her loved ones leave messages that highlight her fractured connections, but the movie never develops this into anything meaningful.
Vicious is a horror film that never quite figures out how to scare you. It has a solid premise and Dakota Fanning gives a strong performance, but the messy story, lack of fresh scares, and slow pacing make it feel more exhausting than terrifying. Horror should make you feel unsettled, but with Vicious, you’re just left checking the clock, hoping it’ll wrap up soon.
Vicious: Movie Plot & Recap
Synopsis:
A woman receives a mysterious box with instructions to place inside something she needs, hates, and loves inside it. But when she does it, a curse is unleashed and the night turns into a nightmare.
Pros:
- Dakota Fanning delivers a solid, grounded performance
- The mysterious box concept has potential
Cons:
- Disjointed and uneven narrative
- Overdone, predictable scares and fake-outs
- Poor pacing that drags the ending far too long
- A wasted setup that never pays off
Vicious was screened at Fantastic Fest on September 19-22, 2025. The film will be available to stream on Paramount Plus from October 20, 2025.
