Reel Review: Vicious (2025)

Bryan Bertino’s haunting chamber horror “Vicious” boasts a killer premise but a shaky narrative; as frustrating as it is atmospheric.

MORBID MINI: A haunting concept, a powerhouse performance from Dakota Fanning, and immaculate direction can’t save Vicious from its own murky storytelling. Still, it’s a chilling Halloween watch for those who prefer their horror messy, mean, and drenched in atmosphere.

Bryan Bertino has always been a master of dread. From The Strangers to The Dark and the Wicked, he’s shown a knack for weaponizing isolation, silence, and human frailty. His work thrives in the in-between spaces. With Vicious, his long-anticipated return, Bertino trades his usual rural landscapes for a more intimate chamber piece.

The result is a film that’s beautifully shot, immaculately acted, and deeply frustrating in equal measure.

Dakota Fanning anchors the film as Polly, a 32-year-old woman drifting through life, numb and disconnected. She’s childless, lonely, and hanging on to a sense of stability by her fingernails. Then, one cold night, a knock at the door changes everything. On her doorstep stands an older woman (the brilliant Kathryn Hunter, both eerie and pitiful), claiming to be lost. Out of politeness, Polly lets her in.

And then comes the moment that makes Vicious truly live up to its name. The stranger sets a small black box on Polly’s coffee table and calmly tells her, “I’m going to start now.”

From there, Vicious transforms into a slow-burning descent into supernatural madness.

The box, as it turns out, has rules… horrifying ones. Polly must offer it something she hates, something she needs, and something she loves. The catch? The box knows when you lie.

At its best, Vicious operates as an allegory for self-deception and buried trauma. The box forces Polly to confront her failures, regrets, and emotional stagnation. It’s an elegant metaphor— a literal manifestation of inner rot—and Bertino stages it with the kind of creeping unease that made The Dark and the Wicked so unforgettable.

Mirrors reflect truths Polly refuses to see. Voices of the dead whisper through her phone. Shadows bleed into corners that feel too close. Cinematographer Tristan Nyby’s lens captures this collapse of reality with icy precision, employing negative space and suffocating close-ups that make the film feel like a nightmare swallowing itself whole.

And through it all, Dakota Fanning delivers a staggering performance.

Alone in nearly every scene, she oscillates between fragility and fury, grounding even the most absurd moments in raw emotion. Her expressive face does the heavy lifting that the script sometimes neglects, as she effortlessly communicates fear, shame, and desperation. It’s a performance that demands empathy even when the narrative falters.

Unfortunately, Vicious punishes its audience’s patience.

The story begins with promise but quickly becomes muddled by half-baked mythology and inconsistent rules. What exactly is the box? A curse? A cosmic test? A metaphor for guilt? The film toys with all these ideas but commits to none of them.

The second act repeats its patterns (scream, bleed, hallucinate, repeat) without deepening the mystery or building to a revelation. Bertino’s reliance on familiar tropes undermines the quiet horror he’s so good at.

The result is a movie that feels both overlong and underwritten.

Even the climax, drenched in blood and existential despair, struggles to stick the landing. The final moments are more confusing than cathartic. That’s a shame, given how much emotional groundwork Fanning lays in the first half.

Of course, that’s not to say Vicious is without merit. 

Its atmosphere is unrelenting, its nihilistic violence hits hard, and its emotional core occasionally cuts deep. But like the cursed box at its center, it asks for too much and gives too little in return.

Still, there’s something hauntingly admirable about Bertino’s ambition. This isn’t a lazy retread; it’s a sincere attempt to wrestle with the horror of self-knowledge and the lies we tell ourselves to survive.

The problem is that Vicious keeps its own secrets too close, leaving the viewer desperate for meaning that never quite materializes.

For all its flaws, Vicious remains an atmospheric, brutal, and oddly compelling watch thanks to Bertino’s skill behind the camera and Fanning’s magnetic presence in front of it. 

Vicious had its world premiere at the Fantastic Fest, where it was screened for this review. It was released for streaming on Paramount+ and digital formats on October 10, 2025.