{"id":71559,"date":"2025-10-11T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/71559\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:12:07","slug":"vicious-review-dakota-fanning-screams-her-way-through-a-horror-endurance-test-that-wears-itself-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/71559\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Vicious\u2019 Review: Dakota Fanning Screams Her Way Through a Horror Endurance Test That Wears Itself Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

After launching a home-invasion franchise with the simple premise of three masked figures terrorizing a couple on the rocks, \u201cThe Strangers<\/a>\u201d creator Bryan Bertino<\/a> has maintained his sensibility as a writer-director, spinning other original horror chamber pieces unmoored by sympathy. Now, the horror helmer\u2019s latest effort shows characteristic daring in its detachment.<\/p>\n

Generically titled \u201cVicious<\/a>,\u201d the film offers a spare setup \u2014 a depressed young woman is wracked by hallucinations \u2014 with little definition of what is afflicting her or why. The writer-director doesn\u2019t solicit sympathy for Polly (played by Dakota Fanning<\/a>) or impose meaning on her suffering. It\u2019s a very naked approach to horror, entirely propped up on formal execution. In other words, he risks leaving the audience with nothing. And that comes to pass in \u201cVicious<\/a>,\u201d which trickles down to Paramount<\/a>\u2019s streaming service after being slashed from the studio\u2019s theatrical slate.<\/p>\n

Bertino finds an ample engine in Fanning,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After launching a home-invasion franchise with the simple premise of three masked figures terrorizing a couple on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6946,6947,430,6948,156,434,4223,409,111,43,139,69,5436,417,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-71559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-actors","9":"tag-actresses","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-directors","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-films","14":"tag-hollywood","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-stars","21":"tag-television","22":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}