Vicious

• Written and Directed by Bryan Bertino
• September 19, 2025 (Fantastic Fest) / October 10, 2025 (Paramount+)

On a cold winter night a stranger leaves a young woman a mysterious box sending her into a supernatural fight for her life.

I am game for any mildly seasonally appropriate movie. Though set around Christmas, Vicious is a horror movie so I will call it ‘seasonally appropriate’ though it was released in October. The story focuses on Polly (Dakota Fanning) and her attempts to survive a wooden box of uncertain nature during a fateful night.

As a character Polly is a woman that has never been willing to make tough decisions or really prioritize. Then one winter night around Christmas time she gets a box and because it’s put into her possession she must make some disturbing and tough decisions while admitting some things to herself. Not necessarily a bad idea and I think one that could easily balance being a message film with being a horror film, but nothing is really scary or disturbing aside from an old lady (Kathryn Hunter) that spends perhaps the second most time in the movie beyond Polly. There are some ick moments when she cut off some body parts but nothing frightening.

Intentionally or not, Polly gets portrayed in the opening as a touch unlikeable. She is the stereotypically damaged young woman with a lot of baggage-most of which appears to be self-inflicted. She has an almost antagonistic attitude towards those in her life. Polly’s sister has given her a house but with implied expectations.

Not that her mother (Mary McCormack) is a big help. When we first hear her voice on the phone she sounds almost condescending to her daughter. Why are horror movies today filled with people that are not only unlikable, but the main character is surrounded by people that don’t like them? I have watched a few newer movies that engage in this with the supposed support network not being one or turning on a dime. This might be an accidental reveal of the writers’ lives.

Diving into the aspect of shaky relationships quickly while also showing Polly wallowing in pity while lacking motivation or personal introspection undercut my concern for her fate. When none of a character’s associates care, why should the viewer?

We learned very little about Polly. Rather Bryan Bertino told us about the character as needed to set of the next incident. Handing the audience aspects rather than developing them makes you just indifferent. Give a few minutes with the sister and mom before the old woman shows before beginning the actual story. That way the audience starts with some sense of Polly’s life. I would have taken showing her stealing the $26 from her job. ANYTHING!

Being dramatic you should learn something about the character or see a change but in Vicious you are largely left wanting in both instances. I don’t need to notice more than I do about my own family about when it comes to her but I need to know have a feeling I’ve experienced the character and I don’t get that. Maybe if it had more of a story I could care but I can only really call the plot ‘survive.’ What I wrote for the opener here is being generous.

The old woman is the most disturbing element of the movie but really just bookends the story. It is incredibly easy to make a senior citizen creepy in a film. Random voices on the phone do not always cut it for me.

There’s a distinct war on lighting here. I don’t think we have a well-lit shot of anything making the film hard to see. Shadow is important to horror, but it needs to be at the right moments/places. Outside at night works. In a house not really. Are lightbulbs rationed in this town?

I was left trying to figure the point of it all. Was it that well all need to make tough choices? Was it that Polly finally got a handle on life? What was the point of the box wanting three things but then the woman saying it always wants more? Was everything a lie? More confusingly the reason Polly got the box was because she was nice and not some bad action. Is the lesson not to be nice to strangers?

So she really just needed to give it three things and move on by handing it off? Inflicting her horrors on another makes Polly a crappy person but there is nothing done by writer/director Bryan Bertino to frame her as desperate or dark. She issues a similar pre-apology as the old woman did. The shot of her victim does more to show that poor girl as a baddie.

I didn’t have high hopes for Vicious. I expected some cheap jump scares and maybe an interesting though not perfect film. It is boring and pointless making it an example of content rather than film.