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 for those who fail to conform? And may a film really repay one thing so terribly tantalizing?

Properly, after seeing Vicious throughout its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025, we are able to reply that final one: no, it can’t pay every little thing off. In actual fact, Vicious fails to reply virtually each query about its premise, as a substitute 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, specifically 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 virtually every little thing else. The field is mainly its personal character; it claims its sufferer will die if Polly doesn’t comply, nevertheless it by no means fairly explains how or why that may 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 actually even mislead her. Consequently, 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 want a field in any respect if this curse can use the telephone 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 endlessly. 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 really value it in any respect. This all is likely to be okay if we had some massive, overarching theme about sacrifice or love to contemplate, however there’s mainly nothing there. In the long run, the movie tries to shoehorn some sort of thematic sentiment, however by that point, we’re so annoyed 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 finest moments, the movie permits us to consider what we’d do with the field. However more often than not, that’s when the telephone 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 Unbelievable Fest 2025 and can debut on Paramount+ on October 10.

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