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 fundamental 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 in case you fail to conform? And may a film truly repay one thing so terribly tantalizing?

Effectively, after seeing Vicious throughout its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025, we will reply that final one: no, it can’t pay every little thing off. The truth is, 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 may 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’s nearly every little thing else. The field is mainly its personal character; it claims its sufferer will die if Polly doesn’t comply, but it surely by no means fairly explains how or why that will occur. As a substitute, if the field doesn’t like what she’s doing, it actually telephones her to elucidate itself, telling her precisely what it desires her to sacrifice, and it could possibly even mislead her. In consequence, all cohesion within the film goes away. If the field is aware of what it desires, the place’s the drama? Why would we care about any of this if every little thing is preordained? Why do we’d like 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 without end. It’s a minor spoiler, however even after she does precisely what the field desires 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 contemplate, however there’s mainly nothing there. Ultimately, the movie tries to shoehorn some form of thematic sentiment, however by that point, we’re so pissed off about how every little thing can, does, and can change from scene to scene, so it fails to stay.

There’s some disgusting gore all through, and in its greatest 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 wonderful lead efficiency in a maddening film that by no means delivers in the way in which we’d hope.

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

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