Vicious Review: Dakota Fanning And Cursed Mystery Boxes Combine For A Harrowing Good Time In My Book

Dakota Fanning has long proven herself capable of excelling within all genres, and as a horror fanatic, I’m always enthused when she exerts her talents on spookier projects. It’s a genre blessing indeed that Vicious, her big-screen successor to 2024’s The Watchers, is another limited-location chiller that ramps up the scares, gore, and emotional dread. If only her character’s story were on the same level…

Vicious, which made its world premiere during Fantastic Fest’s 20th anniversary, is the latest from writer/director Bryan Bertino, best known for creepily invading our homes with 2009’s The Strangers. With that and later projects, Bertino cemented his talents behind the camera, and I’ve always found his directing talents to be a step or two above his storytelling. That personal critique remains consistent throughout Vicious. That said, he employs such a fun and expansive bag of horror magic tricks that it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Cursed Box With Mysteriously Specific Rules? Check

Dakota Fanning's tattoo-covered Polly is going through both past and present-day struggles, and her niece seems to be the only source of light in that darkness. So the last thing Polly needs in her life is a weird and confused old woman showing up on her doorstep with a bandaged hand and a nondescript wooden box of doom.

The movie's dread-laced set up is laid out clearly: Polly will die if she doesn't appease the box's requirements for the owner to offer up something they love, something they hate, and something they need, all before an included ornate hourglass runs out. (And let me tell you, this box is a right fickle bitch about its own rules .) Before Polly realizes it, the curse has been bestowed upon her, and it's the kind of curse that preys on personal demons and skeleton-filled closets.

Reality-Bending Chaos With Nerve-Rattling Sound Design? Check

The film's soundscape is perhaps its most impressive element, especially once the box starts destroying Polly's sense of reality with one incident after another. It's as if every action in Vicious was captured by a 360-degree array of microphones, from doors unlocking, to Polly taking drags of a cigarette to the skin being pierced. Not so unnerving when each is heard in solitary, but when the cacophonous bombardment of ringing phones, nursery rhymes, screaming children and slamming doors sets in, it's hard not to start squirming in discomfort.

Having watched Vicious in a packed theater with booming speakers, I retroactively found it astounding that Paramount Pictures has nixed the film's theatrical release in place of a Paramount+ debut. Bertino, sound designer Chuck Michael and the rest of the team put a ton of dedicated effort into making the movie as much of an aural horror as a visual one, and it's a shame that the majority of home audience members won't get that same pulse-pounding experience.

Dakota Fanning Excellence And Tons Of Horror Tricks? Check

If anyone questioned this before, let's make it official now: Dakota Fanning is a Scream Queen. Her performance in Vicious is excellent, as she adds an emotional layer to the character that does a lot of work filling out Polly's intentionally vague backstory involving her various family members – who each end up making appearances in one way or another. With another actor in the role, I might just be watching to see what wacky shit happens next, but Fanning makes it easy to empathize with the protagonist during her plights.

What an array of plights and frights it is, too. Bryan Bertino throws a ton of beloved horror stunts and gags at the metaphorical wall in Vicious, and most of them stick. I'm a sucker for evil mirror reflections and when slow camera pans are used to reveal pure insanity, and those are just two of literally dozens of fun and freaky elements that I couldn't get enough of in Vicious.

Fully Fleshed-Out Story And Consistently Logical Character Behavior? Not So Much

For all the hints and breadcrumbs spread throughout the film, and for all that Dakota Fanning's performance helps, Polly's story leaves audiences with perhaps too many unanswered questions for her story to feel fully cohesive. I'm perfectly fine with not having a feature-length origin tale about the box itself, and I do like when things are open to interpretation, but I'm less fond of feeling like I missed out on important info.

As well, Polly's behavior throughout the film veers from naturally understandable to totally anti-intuitive, with too much time spent watching the hourglass' sand drip down while questioning why it's all happening. There's a scene beyond the midpoint where Polly gripes about not knowing what the box wants, despite having a pretty good idea. It's a movie moment for sure, but maybe not something a real person would do.

There's not all that much to chew on after it's all over with, and I do wish the story would have utilized the snowy setting a bit more. All in all, though, Vicious is a greatest hits of horror scares and jolts that will have viewers screaming, gasping and giggling with malicious glee.