Vicious

I’m going to give a general outline of the film but try and stay away from spoilers because, as I’ve said, this one is new. So it’s worth a watch. I don’t want to hype it up too much because it’s good but not amazing. It’s definitely worth a watch but it’s not like it’s a whole new arena of storytelling brought to life in a way we’ve never seen. The basic premise is that Dakota Fanning is a early 30’s woman who is having a hard time figuring out how she fits in the land of the grown ups. She’s got some immature tendencies that make her seem a bit stunted as an adult but she’s trying. On the eve of a big job interview, she gets a knock at the door quite late. Oddly enough she opens the door to find a confused older woman that she brings inside as a gesture of goodwill in order to try and help the lady. However, it turns out that this elderly harbinger brings a terrible fate. She has a box that will require Fanning’s character deliver three things. Something she hates. Something she needs. Something she loves. Confused at first, she ushers the crazy old gal on her way as she’s given very creepy vibes. But it turns out to be too late and the wheels of destiny are already turning. Her evening just took a terrifying twist and what unfolds is a carefully sculpted descent into various measures of madness.

Firstly, Dakota Fanning is wonderful in this. There are so many different emotions that she has to hit and she nails just about everything. She is incredibly compelling from beginning to end and drags you through every painstaking second of her nightmarish hellscape. Her terror becomes your terror. Her pain, yours. When reality and fiction blend, you’re just as confused as she is. This is what makes for a truly terrifying horror movie because you are nearly instantly emotionally linked up with her and she carries you through each scene. What makes this all the more impressive of a task is the fact she does so almost completely on her own. She has a series of phone conversations with her mother, her deceased father, and her sister that you are all privy to. But through each of them, it’s just her on screen. Mary McCormack, who plays her mother, does have a couple ghoulish moments on screen but they are minimal at best. Her performance is wonderfully complementary but visually is tight. It’s momentary here and there. Most of it is audio over the phone. So Fanning puts this entire world on her back and goes about her business allowing us, the audience, to act as a sort of voyeur to her mounting insanity.

Subtlety does a LOT for this film and I am entirely here for it. This is one of my favorite modern touches on the genre and when someone is able to apply it like this, I feel like it’s a treat. The editing is masterful in that we dance all the way up to a line with surgical precision and cut to another shot and whatever we were anticipating disappears in a split second. You build this geyser of anticipation and it’s snatched away from you at the last possible millisecond. It’s so well done and it almost makes you think you saw something you know you saw but simultaneously question your own belief that you actually did. It washes over you like your own fresh paranoia that you’re being included in this game of cat and mouse. It’s that connection to Fanning’s performance that allows you to tag along with such an eagerness but also such a foreboding sense of dread in the same moment. You can’t help but be drawn in by her unfolding narrative as the stakes get higher and higher. It’s almost as though you’re desperate for your own reprieve so you can put a measure of emotional distance between yourself and the harrowing plight before her on screen. I cannot praise it enough and Fanning is completely deserving of the accolades for her superb presence in this film. After having watched so many horror movies attempt to do something and just fail miserably, films like this one make it entirely worthwhile. This is the kind of movie that is one part thriller and one part supernatural. There are jump scares but they are few and far between. The creep factor is what give this one such a razor’s edge in my estimation. The tension is a good slow burn but it’s also matched by this measure of intensity that keeps everything elevated once we’re invested in the story.

There’s plenty I want to say about this movie but ultimately it just boils down to watch it. I’m doing my best to temper my praise because it wasn’t the greatest movie I’ve ever seen. But it’s definitely one of the gems that stands out significantly to me this time of year. Every year I come across a smattering of movies that I truly enjoy and this is by far one of my favorites so far. It’s certainly the best thriller I’ve seen and I think it might edge out M3GAN 2.0 simply because this one is much more traditionally horror centric where M3GAN 2.0 is more horror adjacent in my opinion. It’s definitely got roots in the genre but the sophomoric entry in that franchise is less dependent on legacy scare tactics and more comedically dark narrative moments and violent beats. Vicious lives up to it’s namesake in what it intends to be on much more intellectual and emotional levels which dramatically increases the scare quotient. There’s just enough fright to match the tension and it blends together beautifully with all the other elements in tow. I think it’s just so refreshing to find a movie I had so much fun with against the backdrop of either passable or downright terrible films in a much more general sense. Again, it’s not that we’re simply clearing a much more negligible standard and shining is just a matter of not sucking. It’s that we’ve left so much of the other tripe and nonsense in our wake that we can’t even see that other fodder in orbit of a film like this one.

Right off the top of my head I feel confident at an 8. I’d be tempted to even go 8.2 or 8.3 but I think I’m going to rest comfortably at an 8 just to make sure I’m rational and composed about everything. This is clearly an upper echelon film and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We’re just about at the conclusion of week 3. This puts us 2/3 of the way through the month. We are on the downward slope towards Halloween and a flick like this gives just enough jolt to breathe some real life back into this whole endeavor. It’s nice when this isn’t just a slog through rubbish and there’s real moments of enjoyment in the process. Also, what I really enjoy about getting to a moment like this is that clearly my tastes are not necessarily the mainstream within this genre. I don’t enjoy gore. Much of what the genre has to offer is just not for me. So when I stumble upon something like Vicious that I really enjoy, I’m happy because I feel like anyone who is in a similar spot as myself when it comes to your relationship with horror movies, you may have an in with a spooky tale you can actually enjoy come October. I’ve sat through more than my fair share of utter despair with films many people in the community adore. I get that I’m not the average viewer and I never claimed to be. But as a movie lover who does not distinguish genres as off limits in a general sense, its considerably refreshing to find entries other horror may not enjoy but I do. That’s a big part of why I do this. It’s October and I like to indulge like everyone else does this time of year in the spooky offerings that cinema has for us. It’s a wide berth just like every other genre and there’s plenty to watch. It’s easy to get caught up in the classics or even my own favorites. I’ve revisited some films this year that I haven’t seen in forever and some that I watched just last year that are new favorites. I like to have as much fun with this as I can. Even when I rip apart a movie because it was just so bad, I still try to have some kind of fun with it. If it happens to be a favorite of yours, I’m legitimately happy for you. There’s a huge crowd of people who LOVE 28 Years Later, I’m sure of it. I don’t ever want to watch that movie again. But I’m super happy for it’s fans that they have it. And just because I hated it, does not mean it’s a bad movie. It’s a bad movie to me. But that’s it. That doesn’t do anything to the movie and I’m thankful for that. If you feel like your tastes in movies is anywhere close to mine, there’s a good chance you might not like it either and if I save you the time and effort then I’m happy. I don’t actually have to eat a turd sandwich to know I won’t enjoy it. I just know it. One man’s turd sandwich is another man’s 28 Years Later thought. I’m not sure what the metaphor is because I’m running out of momentum and I’ve gotten WAY off track here. I’m getting off my soapbox to finish this review so we can be done with today. Vicious was a great film in my opinion. I enjoyed the heck out of it and I’ll probably watch it again somewhere down the road. If it comes on physical media, there’s a good chance I’ll pick it up. But that’s just me and I’m ok with that that. So on that note, we’ll wrap this up and until tomorrow I’ll catch you on the flip side.