Dakota Fanning in the Paramount+ horror film Tedious
After launching a home invasion series based on the simple premise of three masked figures terrorizing a couple on the rocks, The Strangers creator Brian Bertino has maintained his sensibilities as a writer and director, turning out other original, unadulterated horror. Now, the horror director’s latest effort shows a distinct audacity in its detachment.
The film, generically titled “Vicious,” presents a stand-in scene — a depressed young woman wracked by hallucinations — with little definition of what befalls her or why. The writer-director doesn’t ask for sympathy for Polly (played by Dakota Fanning) or impose meaning on her suffering. It’s a very bare-bones approach to horror, fully supported by formal execution. In other words, he risks leaving the audience with nothing. That’s what’s happening with Vicious, which is moving to Paramount’s streaming service after being dropped from the studio’s theatrical slate.
Bertino finds ample drive in Fanning, at least. The opening presents her character glowing in red light, complete with a narrated monologue, vaguely written but presented as pure and perhaps suicidal desperation. Something is clearly eating at her, and that impression lingers in the following scenes, with a holiday season ending in which Polly half-heartedly prepares for a job interview and soothes her anxious mother over the phone.
These wistful early moments set the mood, but the film is careful to light Polly’s feet on fire. “Vicious” is getting as much devoted attention for its title role as Roman Polanski’s domestic horror classics “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” but Bertino has a more enthusiastic game plan. Instead of gradually boiling over into madness, the film hits the hallucinations and fever immediately and quickly exhausts itself trying to keep up the pace.
The rubber meets the road when Polly receives a mysterious box from a gruff, charming old woman (Katherine Hunter, the current go-to for this sort of thing – and deservedly so). It comes with a ticking hourglass and a series of mystery challenges: Give the box “something to hate, something you need, something to love.” It’s an instruction filled with technicalities, forcing Polly to excavate most of her personal traumas. It also results in some severed body parts and dirty-looking strangers, who tap Polly on the shoulder in fear before disappearing.
These are all familiar and disappointing horror pictures, but Vicious has been in the air for a long time before that. The roaring fireplace casts pale shadows over Polly’s living room, but it is the only warmth in her enormous cavernous home. The house seems to exist at the end of the universe, so much so that he is surprised when Polly briefly dashes into a neighbor’s place in search of a lifeline. But when the stranger ends up possessed within minutes, stabbing herself in the face and sending Polly back out cold, no other development seems more logical. There are no helping hands when the entire movie is unfolding or not unfolding inside someone’s head.
This doctrine reasserts itself when Polly begins to be haunted by visions of her loved ones. Bertino strictly refrains from delving into the details of her personal history—a self-imposed limit that ultimately prevents the film from getting under your skin, but which serves to further emphasize Polly’s isolation. One of the most memorable moments comes early, when another call between Polly and her mother turns into a state of dread as the voice on the phone morphs into a more cruel and sinister being. It’s a clever trick for Vicious to return to, as her diminutive side characters offer brief warmth to Polly before revealing themselves as vessels for the demon that haunts her. Fanning’s tense, volatile performance comes to life in these locations, with Polly’s declining confidence and fear of betrayal leading to the wounded self-loathing that becomes the film’s best lasting impression.
But “Vicious” is mostly a dizzying slog. The static lines excite when left to be a one-man show as Bertino hits them like a pinball, hitting them with great, loud panic that seems to keep resetting. As Polly explores the darker parts of herself, the film is unable to put together a structure that matches the depths of her soul-searching. The film devolves into something sloppy and ill-considered, without anything special to bring it back into focus. It is not a sin to have cruelty as the goal, especially in the case of horror. But you should at least throw your punches.
“Vicious” is now streaming on Paramount+.