Cast: Dakota Fanning, Katherine Hunter, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard,

Written and Directed By: Bryan Bertino

Release year: 2025

Studio/Streamer: Paramount Plus

98 minutes

Audio Description provided By:

Written By:

Narrated By:

What Is it?: A young woman (Fanning) has a visit from a mysterious stranger, who has a gift that is far less of a reward, and much more of a curse. Told that she will die tonight, unless able to complete specific tasks, the woman must find a way to break the curse while following its rules.

What Works: Two streaming services released films for Halloween featuring people basically stuck in their home the whole film. Vicious, from the director of The Strangers, is the better of the two. Sure, this is reminiscent of The Box, a horror movie from over a decade ago, but only in so much that there’s a box. One film has a premise of pressing a button, and someone you don’t know will die, and as a reward you get something. Here, fanning has to give the box something she hates, something she loves, and something she needs, or she dies.

Dakota Fanning, who spent last year trapped in a glass house with no stones nearby to throw at Shyamalan, does well in her desperation. Maybe this is her new genre? If so, we could do worse. She has been a solid talent since her debut in I Am Sam, so she continues that here.

Backing her up is Katherine Hunter, who really impressed me with her turn as the witches in The tragedy Of Macbeth. She seems to be the go to when it comes to needing a creepy older woman. the movie has a limited supporting cast, but Hunter stands out simply because her character requires no real backstory.

While I found the film had some interesting twists along the way, in terms of the box, and how it kept wanting to consume more things like it was Audrey II in Little Shop Of horrors, I couldn’t help but feel like we should have known more about these people. the problem with this film, and the aforementioned similar film from Hulu, is the lack of backstory.

We first meet Fanning when she returns home to a rather dilapidated interior, and we don’t get knowledge until it rolls out slowly over the film. But we don’t know why we should care about fanning, other than her simply being human, and her connections to family seem thin because we haven’t spent any time with the characters before Fanning is in a state of desperation.

Films like this would benefit from a prologue of sorts showing us these people before tragedy strikes. Hell, even Disney’s Elio seems belligerent in not showing us a preamble with Elio and his parents. I don’t know why 2025 seems like the age we’re killing off establishing sequences, but they can be quite effective, as we become attached to, or at least understand characters ahead of the rising tension and inciting incident. Here, we basically are just straight into a horror film, and while that can be fine, it can also be better if I have someone to root for.

the Audio description: Swear to god, I stayed to the very end, and right as it said “Audio Description Provided by…” the film ended. Paramount didn’t push me into another film, it just ended.Certainly there are some effective scares here, as Fanning has moments of self harm to try and satisfy the box that are kind of icky. I certainly thought it did a nice job of matching the tension, and bringing out the horror. It isn’t the goriest film, but it does have some moments that will make you squirm a bit.

Why you Might Like it: Vicious does have the benefit of Dakota Fanning and Katherine Hunter, both are accomplished, and help to bring some depth to characters given nothing to begin with.

Why You Might Not Like It: It is similar to things, but mostly it is just in dire need of backstory.

Final thoughts: A solid horror entry, Vicious is mostly elevated by Dakota Fanning and Katherine Hunter, the latter of whom is one of the most underrated talents working today.

Fresh: Final Grade: 7.2