Trailer courtesy of Paramount Pictures. Now streaming on Paramount+.

Where to watch: Paramount+ (streaming now) | Starring: Dakota Fanning | Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Verdict (Spoiler-Light)

Vicious arrives with a mean streak and a pulse like a late-night panic. Anchored by a taut, wary turn from Dakota Fanning, the film plays peekaboo with the unknown—letting shadows move a fraction too much, letting a door close a hair too slow—until your nerves feel like loose guitar strings. It’s not the loudest horror release of the year; it might be the one that follows you down the hallway after the credits.

Score: ★★★★☆ (4/5) — atmospheric, unnerving, and glued together by Fanning’s steely focus.

What It’s About

Without spoiling the fun: Fanning’s character finds herself stalked by a presence that seems to understand her routines, her silence, and her blind spots. The film weaponizes ordinary spaces—kitchens, stairwells, parking structures—by giving them the rhythm of a hunter. When the title promises “vicious,” it doesn’t mean gore so much as intent; the camera feels like it’s leaning forward, breathing on the back of your neck.

Why It Works

Dakota Fanning, coiled: She plays fear like a chess match—eyes scanning, voice steady, body ready to run. It’s a performance that reads in IMAX but whispers perfectly at home.
Horror grammar done right: The movie favors creeping composition over jump-scare overload: long lenses, negative space, and sound cues that rumble just below comfort.
Lean runtime, tight grip: It wastes little time explaining the dark; it simply lets it in. The result is momentum you feel in the diaphragm.

Streaming on Paramount+

Vicious is available now on Paramount+, which is exactly the right sofa-edge setting: lights low, volume up, phone face-down. The mastering leans into inky blacks and pinpoint highlights—great for OLEDs and projectors—while the mix gives you that hush-then-heartbeat dynamic horror thrives on.

Exclusive 2-Minute 7 Seconds Featurette

Featurette courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Craft Corner: Sight & Sound

The camera lingers—not lazily, but like a cat at the edge of a cupboard. Sound design does the hunting: vents sighing from the wrong direction, a footfall that’s one beat late, the refrigerator’s hum fading just before something else breathes. When Vicious strikes, it prefers implication to explanation—and that restraint is what keeps your stomach fluttering.

Should You Watch It?

If you loved the dread-first approach of modern homebound thrillers but wanted a star turn that can carry the quiet, this one’s for you. Watch with the lights off. And maybe leave a lamp on in the corridor for later.