Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for Vicious!Dakota Fanning is back in the horror genre and presented with a harrowing reflection on life in Vicious. Fanning leads the cast as Polly, a young woman struggling to find direction in her life who, one night, receives a mysterious box from a stranger who tells her she must place three things inside: something she needs, something she hates, and something she loves, or else, she will die.
Initially resistant to the woman’s warnings, Polly begins to find herself tormented by haunting apparitions and hallucinations, making it all the more difficult to discern reality from nightmare. As she confronts the darkness at the heart of the mysterious box, Polly will find herself taking a deeper look at her life and pushed to the brink of sanity in order to survive.
Alongside Fanning, the Vicious cast includes The Front Room‘s Kathryn Hunter, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard, Devyn Nekoda and Klea Scott. The twisty movie hails from writer/director Bryan Bertino, best known for his feature debut The Strangers, while also returning to the director’s chair for the first time in five years since the acclaimed horror drama The Dark and the Wicked.
In honor of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Dakota Fanning and Bryan Bertino to discuss Vicious. The writer/director offered some insight into the mysterious box at the core of the terrifying plot, including addressing whether it’s actually evil or has a more benevolent side to it, while he and Fanning also shared the personal inspirations behind Polly’s tattoos and the physicality of the movie’s production.
Vicious’ Mysterious Box Is More Of A Mirror For Whoever Receives It
Across his near-20-year career, Bertino has explored an interesting range of horror subgenres, beginning with the more grounded, and partially true-story-based, home invasion The Strangers to the more explicitly supernatural The Monster. With Vicious, Bertino has been a concept situated in his notebook for quite a long time, which the writer/director chalks up to his desire to find an object “that could open up Hell and open up this vehicle to jumpstart a nightmare“.
In the early days of development, he knew the movie would center on the mysterious box Polly receives, though admits he “never knew exactly where this story would go“, nor initially the rules of “what this box would do“. However, as he would go into “a new round of brainstorming“, he found that the general concept of the mysterious box continued to resurface in his mind, and it wasn’t until a writing session in a Georgia Airbnb that would finally unlock the story for him.
I knew that it was really going to then be about me, as a writer, learning everything I could about Polly and then how the box would then use that against her.
“It started to feel like a secluded house,” Bertino described. “It started to feel like, even though it wasn’t winter, it felt like I was locked away from the world. And so slowly from there, I had a vision of this woman, Polly. And then it all started to crystallize for me.“
As previously mentioned, the box, delivered by Kathryn Hunter’s character, comes with the ruleset of having to give up something one loves, something one hates and something one needs, or else they will be killed.
In reflecting on the creation of these rules, Bertino explained wanting to keep Vicious‘ central concept “simple“, with the three questions being “something that you think you would answer in a second“, as one could take them “at face value“. The writer/director denotes, though, that Polly and anyone who becomes the box’s recipient has to “carefully consider and dig deep” to answer the questions.
“I knew that Polly had a lot of layers and I knew that Polly had a lot of faces that she shows to different people, her family, her friends, probably to herself,” Bertino explained. “I wanted, very quickly for us, to start to realize that the box isn’t interested in any of that, and that it’s wanting the stuff that she doesn’t even sometimes acknowledge.“
Across Vicious‘ 98-minute runtime, the mystery box certainly puts Polly through a horrific time, seeing apparent visions of neighbors and family committing violent acts both on themselves and on her. However, with the box also pushing Fanning’s character to confront the darkness in her life, and therefore offering her a chance to grow, it could be conversely interpreted that it’s actually benevolent, in some fashion.
For Bertino, he chooses to take something of a more ambiguous reflection on interpreting the actual meaning behind the mystery box. In his own words, the writer/director feels there’s “always something that’s terrifying to me about randomness and not fully understanding a plan“, with human nature “wanting to try to understand why horrible things happen“. He does, though, feel that “the box probably goes to look for people“, and subsequently ends up “finding something in each person“.
“I think what was interesting to me about this was you really have a story of different women passing this on to each other, I was intrigued by that,” Bertino expressed. “I was intrigued by how hurt people hurt people, and how pain kind of moves on and on. So the question sometimes for me is like, ‘Did the box choose Polly or was it fate that she answered the door?’“
As for Fanning, she looks at Vicious‘ mystery box as having “more of a mirror vibe” to it. Pointing out that audiences meet her character “at a place in her life where somebody would say she’s not living up to her potential“, the Golden Globe and Emmy nominee says that this feeling of being “stuck and lost” makes her the ultimate target for the box.
“Her thoughts and her actions towards herself are unkind,” Fanning shared. “I think that that is, unfortunately, something that a lot of people can relate to. The thoughts and the things that we say to ourselves are often the meanest and the worst. So, despite the genre elements of this movie, I think it really is about the internal battle that we all, at one point or another, have with our own minds and with our own sanity and with our own choices. It’s really kind of an exploration of that.“
Bertino & Fanning Worked Closely To Make Polly A Well-Rounded Protagonist
Going back to her years as a child actor, Fanning has experienced her fair share of horror movie filmmaking, whether in the Robert De Niro-co-starring Hide and Seek or Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut, The Watchers. With Vicious, however, Fanning finds herself really pushed physically and emotionally to play Polly as she descends into a waking nightmare.
When she first received the script from Bertino, Fanning immediately felt “I hadn’t quite done anything like” Vicious before, namely with the “level of emotion that has to be sustained” throughout its runtime. In order to capture both the emotional and physical aspects of the production, Fanning approached it like “a marathon“, given she couldn’t “just be at a level 10 the entire time“, but instead properly explore the “ups and downs” of Polly’s journey.
“I think that’s also just where Bryan Bertino, the director and the writer, came in,” Fanning beamed. “I trusted him so much, and so I trusted him to guide me if I ever got off course, or felt out of my depths. I really implicitly trusted him, and that was key to making this, for sure, is our relationship.“
The star admitted to initially having some fears of “what if one day I can’t cry anymore“, but ultimately acknowledged that “somehow you do” as actors “get into the groove of making a movie“, and subsequently the body “just adapts“. Unlike Fanning, though, Bertino was never concerned about his star’s ability to tap into the character, praising her for being “in such command of her emotions“ that led to there being “a beauty and a truth” to her performance.
Even when the more technical elements of the production came into play, and Bertino and Fanning discussed “the finer details of movement and camera angles“, he never felt like she was “lost“, nor that the emotion of a scene was “taken away” from her. The “key component” to any scene, as Bertino puts out, is letting an actor feel free to explore their character fully, as he would “rather get the performance than the perfect shot“.
“I think there were times here where I was able to work with her [and cinematographer] Tristan Nyby, and their communication, as well,” Bertino explained. “We just became a team, and it was really because of who she is as a woman, and as a talent and as a performer, that she is so powerful and confident in who she is that we were all able to kind of know that Dakota was going to be ready for each challenge that we were giving to her.“
As much as the character was a combination of their efforts, one element of Polly that took a lot of inspiration directly from Bertino were her various tattoos, a couple of which the writer/director confirms he “did specifically“. One of them, a tattoo of a bee, is a design that came from his A24 hit The Monster, which he gave to Zoe Kazan’s character, and subsequently gave to Polly.
Noting that there “are elements of other movies I’ve made” in Vicious, Bertino ultimately finds that there “are parts of me that are parts of Polly“. “I think it was a way for me to be even more kind of exposed just as I wanted Polly to be exposed as I wanted Dakota to be exposed,” Bertino pondered. “I think it was a kind of fascinating attempt at trying to spill a bunch of stuff out onto the screen.“
What Else We Learned About Vicious From Fanning & Bertino
ScreenRant: Kathryn Hunter is incredible in this movie too. She’s not in a ton, but her presence leaves a lasting impact. Talk to me about working with her and making sure that she had that impact in the film.
Bryan Bertino: I saw the Macbeth that she was in, and I heard her voice, and it’s the only time that’s ever happened where I paused the movie and I turned to my girlfriend and I said, “This is who I’ve been looking for the whole time and I have to get her.” So the next day, I spent hours online watching play performances and was suddenly just blown away with this woman with this incredible voice and this incredible ability to move her body, and use it as a tool. That was just fascinating to me. So we reached out to her, and when she said yes, I was thrilled. And then really, she’s so tiny and you compare her and Dakota in size, but she is doing so much. I kept telling her that I’m so excited, because I feel like she’s a 60-year-old woman that’s becoming a movie star. And because everybody wants to be around her and work with her. I was thrilled to have her and to get to go through this experience.
ScreenRant: Now, this next question is a bit of a spoiler, and it won’t come out until after the movie’s been seen by people, but Bryan’s called Vicious one of his most optimistic endings that he’s done. Even though Polly’s left scarred, there’s a bit of empowerment because Polly doesn’t die, and it’s not fully pessimistic. How did you interpret her survival?
Dakota Fanning: I think I interpreted it as we are so much stronger than we think. 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 humans are tougher than we give ourselves credit for. 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’s a slight bit.
Vicious is now available to stream on Paramount+.

- Release Date
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October 10, 2025
- Runtime
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98 minutes
- Director
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Bryan Bertino