Film Fests
[REVIEW] Fantastic Fest 2025: ‘Vicious’ Has an Intriguing Premise, But Can’t Figure Out Its Own Rules
During a pivotal scene in Vicious, the latest horror film from The Strangers director Bryan Bertino, I was reminded of Pinhead’s simple declaration in Hellraiser: “The box. You opened it. We came.” Hellraiser’s demons are, with few exceptions, summoned by people who think they want what the Cenobites offer—people who deserve what’s coming to them. It’s a concept that’s easy to grasp, and one that makes the resulting torture all the more twistedly satisfying to watch. The same cannot be said for whatever resides in the box at the center of Vicious, which seems as confused as the audience about what it wants or who it targets, resulting in a watch that, for all its scares, leaves an odd taste in the mouth.
Never Open the Door to Strangers
Vicious stars Dakota Fanning as Polly, a 30-something woman who seems to have lost her way in life. She’s single and childless (the worst possible things a woman could be!) and seems to be existing in a state of depression-induced disconnection from the world, as evidenced by her lonely evenings spent bumming around an empty house with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Her attempts to break out of this state feel half-hearted and aching with hopelessness as she slowly tries on outfits for an upcoming job interview. Her only anchor point is her young niece, whom she clearly loves, but even her own sister seems to be coming to the end of her rope with her.
Polly’s inertia is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious old woman (Kathryn Hunter) on a wintry night. Feigning senility, the woman eases her way into Polly’s home, where she suddenly flips from helplessness to steely resolve as she utters the eerie line, “I’m going to start now.” Placing a box on the table in front of her, the woman informs Polly that she must place three things inside of it: something she hates, something she needs, and something she loves. Sounds simple enough. But when the woman is gone and Polly is left alone with the box, her quiet evening quickly descends into a waking nightmare.
Vicious Goes for the Jugular, but Seems Uncertain With What It Wants to Say
With The Strangers, Bertino relied heavily on unsettling his audience with behavior happening just out of sight of his characters before confronting both with a gut-punch conclusion. His 2020 comeback, The Dark and the Wicked, was a deeply atmospheric chiller that descended into nerve-jangling jump scares. Vicious tries to do a little of both, leaving the rattled Polly initially unaware of the evil settling in for the night shift before hitting her (and the viewer) with an unrelenting barrage of horrors for the rest of the runtime. There are a few subtle frights to be found here, especially those involving the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the living room—Bertino has a real knack for making homes feel unsafe and haunted, even with a cozy fire crackling in the hearth—but for the most part, Vicious isn’t subtle about trying to scare you. Polly is attacked by her mirror self, knives and other implements plunge into fleshy parts, and her phone rings constantly as the entity calls to taunt her using the voices of the loved ones she’s pushed away.
But What Does the Box Want in Vicious?
Dampening the potential scare factor, though, is the itching sensation that none of what you’re watching makes a whole lot of sense. In his Q&A after the film’s world premiere at Fantastic Fest, Bertino mentioned that Vicious began life as a one-sentence idea, and it feels like it didn’t evolve much from there. That’s a problem for a film as unnecessarily complicated as Vicious, leaving Polly—and, by extension, the audience—scrambling to figure out rules that even Bertino seems unclear on. What does the box actually want? How do you win, and is winning even possible? Days after seeing Vicious, I’m still not sure.
Worse, I’m left scratching my head over what Bertino actually wanted to say with his underdeveloped themes around mental health. “I don’t want to be me,” Polly informs the audience in the film’s opening moments. That’s abundantly clear, and dealing with the box certainly feels like an opportunity to confront one’s inner demons and gain perspective on what matters in life—but if that’s the case, what is the audience supposed to take away from the box’s habit of forcing self-mutiliation? The reveal of the box’s next victim further muddies the water and will make you wonder if the themes were intentional at all.
Open the Box (Or Hit Play) for Dakota Fanning
As its name suggests, Vicious isn’t afraid to get nasty, delivering crowd-pleasing moments of wince-inducing gore. These are bolstered by a fully committed performance from Fanning, who pivots from apathetic numbness to screaming horror in a heartbeat. However, the fuzzy rules and mixed messages ending make for a more befuddling than satisfying watch, ultimately lessening the impact of the scares. It all feels a little like a first draft—and perhaps a good reminder to check in with your therapist, even if the movie won’t.
Vicious debuts on Paramount+ on October 10 as part of the platform’s Peak Screaming collection.
“I promise, no one’s leaving here smarter tonight,” laughs Frank from the stage as he kicks off Cabane à Sang for its 9th annual trash horror film festival. The programming delivers an eclectic mix of gory, comedic, and bizarre short films from around the globe to a dedicated audience of enthusiastic fans.
What Is Cabane à Sang? A Quebec-Born Underground Horror Festival
Cabane à Sang (which translated to English means “Blood shack”, a play on the Quebecois termphrase cabane à sucre / sugar shack) is a homegrown festival based in Hochelaga, a densely populated working class neighborhood on the east side of Montreal, Québec. For $18 (CA$), you can enjoy hours of meticulously curated madness. A can of local microbrew is $6, a can of soda is $2, and you are guaranteed to see some shit you’ve never seen before in your life.
“We want everyone to be able to come to the fest. Shows for $18 don’t really exist anymore,” insisted organizer Marc-Antoine in a franglais conversation between him, myself and Frank before Saturday’s “Keep It Weird” show (note: some quotes have been translated to English). Frank tells me about the festival’s early days as a road show. “It was a total fucking flop!” he laughs, but the branding was strong, so after taking a year off to regroup, the 2nd edition had people lining up early to attend, surprising even the organizers.
Photo Courtesy of Cabane à Sang
How Cabane à Sang Adapted During COVID and Found a Permanent Home
The pandemic forced the team to adapt again (Quebecers faced some of the harshest COVID restrictions in North America), and they ended up live streaming a jerry-rigged MTV-style projection screen to show the films while audiences participated in the chat. After moving around to a few locations and struggling with a host of technical difficulties, they landed at Productions Jeun’Est, an old church that’s since been turned into an event space. “This year is really next level,” says Marc-Antoine. “We need to highlight the tech crew here, who are just hallucinant (incredible),” as well as the venue, he continued, who’ve “really welcomed us and helped us out.”
This year’s edition features 5 evenings of madness spread out over two weekends. The first weekend hosted the events SCIF’HIGH (promising the “best and worst” of science fiction), RE-Animation (exploring a “wide range of animation styles”), and their signature event, Keep It Weird (a mix of “proudly off-putting short films”). The second weekend will feature Mixed Meats (an “unhinged mix of every corner of horror”) and their infamous 200$ or less film competition – the Party Pooper Spectacular (this year, the theme is Pizza Horror). A $20 virtual pass to the whole fest is available online for those with the misfortune of missing the in person experience.
Why Filmmakers and Fans Take This “Trash” Horror Festival Seriously
Despite the goofy themes, the team of ten-ish organizers take their roles seriously, and are thrilled to have landed in a venue that can give the films the respect they deserve. “Our setup is a bit punk, but I just think about the filmmakers,” insists Marc Antoine. “They put in so much work, it’s normal that we do them justice with a good screening.” Frank echoes this sentiment. “Some stuff [we get] is not necessarily gory or cheap or whatever. They’re just, like, oddities, and they deserve to be seen, you know? And tonight we’re going to see some of them!”
People are already showing up when I arrive an hour early to Saturday’s show (unheard of in a city like Montreal, where showing up 45 min after doors open is the norm). The vibes stay immaculate, thanks to the team’s guiding motto: Don’t be an asshole. “Like legit, this is our only fucking rule here,” laughs Frank, and it applies to everyone, including the filmmakers. “I think we all love this project because it allows us to showcase stuff that we personally like and that we don’t see anywhere else,” says Marc-Antoine.
‘Dom’s Spaghetti’ Courtesy of Cabane à Sang
Weird, Gross, and Brilliant: Inside Cabane à Sang’s Most Bizarre Short Films
True to their words, the evening’s programming features some truly mind bending films, grouped together under ‘themes’ like ‘films that feature bread’ or ‘films that start with the letter D’. For every serious film about war or depression, there are five that are totally absurd. (Frank assures me that they’ve got “plenty of movies with dicks and poop and stuff like that!”) There’s the lesbian eldritch love story inspired by The Thing (The Fling), and there’s a meat-witch orgy movie (Plant Mom). One film is simply about a haunted bidet (Bidet), another features every cinematic iteration of Vin Diesel (Dom’s Spaghetti). Then there’s the mixed media movie Dog Shit, described perfectly as “parfum de caca, marteau dans les couilles” (I’ll leave you all to translate that one yourselves).
As the evening wraps up, Frank reminds the audience to return the following week, before yelling “Shout out bébé Jésus!” to enthusiastic applause, given that we are all sitting in a church. “Over the years, people have come from all over, from Abitibi, from the US,” Marc-Antoine tells me. “Ya, they fly in!!” adds Frank, “we don’t have the money to fucking pay for their flights!” Marc-Antoine continues, saying, “that shows that this really connects with people, locally, yes, but people all over are moved by what we’re doing. We’re going up against some big machines, some big productions, but we’re able to connect with people all the same.”
Cabane à Sang Proves That Micro-Budget Horror is More Important Than Ever
“People are fed up also, and I don’t want to get into the whole fucking AI thing,” Frank adds, “but I think a lot of people are irritated about it. We’re sitting in a great position right now.” When talking about the upcoming film competition on May 9th, I learned that they’ve got 22 unique micro budget works lined up, with an additional slate of films that will soon be on their streaming site, Caban à Sang TV. “AI cannot fucking make this shit up,” Frank says. “This is honest, this is real.”
No, you can’t pray the gay away. For queer youth, a proper life following Christian values is essentially a life on the run; an eternal haunting. Still, under the influence of God, a life haunted until death still has a thicker silver lining compared to the early graves of the LGBT+ that face the risk of deliverance. Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature, Leviticus, explodes with eerie melancholy to a degree we aren’t often rewarded with in genre film. It’s been a while since the horror has been this dark, so beautiful, and so close to home.
Leviticus is a Bleak and Beautiful Queer Horror Story
A mother-son duo has just settled into a small town in Victoria, Australia. Based on the open landscapes filled only with shy intimacy, I’d assume it to be one of those townships where the population stays in each other’s business. Even more so when the weight of the town’s church becomes visible. A community of social and religious judgment built on eggshells is no place for a young queer person just trying to know love and acceptance without harm.
The title, “Leviticus,” uses a single word to describe the phenomenon that dresses the film. It’s in reference to the book in the bible commonly used to condemn the “act” of homosexuality. The subject is Naim, played by Talk To Me’s Joe Bird. While getting acquainted with his new community, he falls into a secret courtship with Ryan (Stacy Clausen). Sheltering their authentic selves from anyone and everyone, the boys enjoy their lustful and unbiased adolescence. They meet in abandoned settings at night, captured through small bits of light through dark shadows, to enjoy each other’s company until they are discovered. The camerawork of cinematographer Tyson Perkins is beautifully lonely. The frames capture desperation for some sort of stability, and are only broken by the thing that feels right: honest companionship.
Forbidden Love in the Shadows
Bird and Clausen’s performances as damned lovers is a wreck. Their dialogue is unassuming, but paired with their physical acting, most sentences are strong enough to make you want to go back to your car, stare into the empty parking lot for a minute, and maybe even weep a little before driving home. Together and alone, their bodies move through each scene with immense social anxieties in addition to the fear of the sinister and demonic conclusions chained to their ankles by the church.
Some are better, some are worse, but religious fearmongering is the avenue to queer prosecution by way of God. The most effective way to drive away homosexuality is to teach young followers to be afraid of themselves. Naim’s deceptively loving mother, played by Mia Wasikowska, has unwavering faith in the church, even as the bodies of young queer men and women are repeatedly discovered after agreeing to controversial religious prayer. Her performance is equally as frightening as the paranormal entity that moves the film, and comes with an objectively horrible feeling of familial heartbreak. It’s clear that Chiarella, who wrote as well as directed, chose each word to say a thousand. Exactly like the world we live in, humans often speak in tongues, but they can be situationally understood with ease.
Religious Horror and the Fear of Self
Ryan has been prayed over before, when the community learned of the mutual lust between him and another local boy before Naim. Soon after, Naim’s sexuality is questioned by his mother, forcing a meeting between him and the deliverance healer too. Deliverance looks like members of the congregation, men of God, and of massive homophobia, surrounding the subject while their bodies contort and convulse in agony. They invoke an evil entity onto the subject to keep them running from their sexuality for the rest of their lives, or until their demise. The demon, which only the subject can see, manifests itself as the person they desire most. If seduced by it, you’ll receive a brutal, unrelenting death. Otherwise, stay as far away from your desires as you can.
This concept of haunting will undoubtedly be met with comparison to It Follows, but unlike David Robert Mitchell’s interpretation, the supernatural mechanics don’t matter nearly as much as the focus to make the allegory, and the feeling that comes from it clear. The sturdy performances mentioned underneath dense, desolate lighting evoke fear in a different medium from victim to viewer. This villain is everything you’d want, and everything you’d think you deserve. Even without a drop of blood (which there is plenty of)- how awful.
Leviticus: A Slow-Burn Horror That Cuts Deep
If you can stomach a super slow and cyclical roundtable of napalm to the adolescent soul, consider Leviticus. If you’re the moviegoer who treasures the post-horror adrenaline high, this film is too low vibration for you. I’ll happily throw Adrian Chiarella his flowers, but I don’t have the stones to press play again.
