Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Vicious (2025)!Vicious star Dakota Fanning has stated the horror movie’s brutal ending still holds a spark of hope, breaking down the meaning behind its final act. Written and directed by The Strangers creator Bryan Bertino, Vicious follows Fanning’s Polly, who must sacrifice something she hates, needs, and loves to a supernatural box to prevent her death that same night.
After she manages to appease Vicious‘ mysterious box, she has to pass it on to someone else. She ends up giving it to her neighbor, Tara (Devyn Nekoda), who ends up killing her parents in order to save her own life. The film ends with the phone in Polly’s home ringing, an ominous cliffhanger in line with the film’s tone.
In an interview with ScreenRant, however, Fanning explained how there is some hope at the end of Vicious despite its dark ending. The actor explained how, despite the hopelessness the box feeds off of and the terrifying ending, Polly’s journey is a testament to how much people can go through while still coming out alive on the other side:
ScreenRant: Brian’s called Vicious one of his most optimistic endings that he’s done, even though Pauly’s left scarred. There’s a bit of empowerment because Ply doesn’t die, and it’s not fully pessimistic. But how did you interpret her survival?
Dakota Fanning: It’s like I interpreted it as… what you like, we’re so much stronger than we think, right? Like, we don’t give ourselves enough credit for the things that we can go through, and maybe we don’t want to have to go through them, but like we are humans, we are tougher than we give ourselves credit for. And so I think Polly is stronger than she ever gave herself credit for. And so, I suppose there is a slight bit of hopefulness, as much as a Bertino movie can have, I guess there is a slight bit.
Vicious is Fanning’s second supernatural horror movie in a row, having previously starred in Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut The Watchers. Her role in the Bertino film is much different, though, as her struggle for survival is not only one against certain death, but one that puts plenty of other people in danger in the process.
Fanning’s statement speaks to the psychological terror Polly goes through over the course of the movie. The box uses ghostly apparitions of people she cares about to push her into making her sacrifices, while the threat of death constantly hangs over her head. Like other Bertino horror movies, this darkness is ever-present and encroaching throughout the film.
She’s also forced to make the difficult choice of passing the box onto Tara if she wants to survive, an act that doesn’t seem to put her in any less danger. Yet she fights to stay alive more than anything. While the battle results in a dark ending, it’s one that emphasizes her struggle against something she doesn’t fully understand.
While the movie’s presentation is more supernatural than Bertino’s The Strangers films, it reflects the director’s knack for crafting terrifying stories that readily explore the darker side of humanity. While there’s a dreariness to the ending of Vicious because Polly’s problems don’t seem to be over, her striving through them does offer a semblance of hope in the dark.
- Release Date
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October 10, 2025
- Runtime
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98 minutes
- Director
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Bryan Bertino
- Writers
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Bryan Bertino
- Producers
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Richard Suckle
