It had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 19, 2025, before being released simultaneously on Paramount+ and on digital video on demand on October 10, 2025.
Plot
Polly is a directionless woman in her 30s who is stuck in a dead end job and fretting over starting at school again. She lives alone in a large house she rents from her more successful sister Lainie who has a young daughter called Aly whom Polly dotes over. Late one night as Polly prepares for an important interview, she is visited by an elderly woman who arrives at the house looking for someone. Polly welcomes the friendly but confused woman inside. The woman gifts Polly a small wooden box and hourglass and claims that Polly is going to die tonight. Unnerved, Polly escorts the woman out of her house and throws away the box. Polly recalls the incident on the phone to her mother but discovers the box inside her home and is startled by a frightening apparition of her mother. On the phone, a supernatural force pretending to be her mother threatens Polly and mocks her life choices. She tells Polly that she will die unless she gives the box something she hates, something she needs and something she loves. Polly gives the box her packet of cigerettes but it rejects it and causes Polly to choke and vomit up a key. The hourglass sand starts falling.
Panicking, Polly visits her neighbor for help but the neighbor is taken over by the same supernatural being and kills herself with a knife. Returning home, Polly uses the key to unlock a closet filled with her deceased father's belongings. After encountering his ghost, Polly retrieves a cross necklace and gives it to the box, having resented religion after losing her father to cancer, which it accepts. Polly encounters a violent doppelganger of herself wielding shears and gets locked in her house. Lainie calls, claiming to have received several strange and threatening phone calls from Polly. Lainie ends the phone call claiming to see Polly outside despite her sister's warnings. Polly decides to cut off her pinky toe with the shears but the box is not satisfied. When Polly also cuts off her index finger and gives it to the box, it is satisfied.
The house door unlocks and Polly rushes to Lainie's house but discovers her sister and family all dead inside. The supernatural force mocks Polly and her choices. Polly decides to cut off a lock of Aly's hair and give it to the box which is accepts. Polly's family reawaken and all seems well until a violent apparation of Aly attacks Polly and stabs her. Polly awakens with the hourglass still running and is unable to stop it. She realises she needs to pass the box on and visits Lainie's neighbor Tara, forcing the box upon her. Returning home, Polly is attacked by the old woman who initially gave her the box. Polly manages to overpower and kill the woman and as she dies, the woman alludes that the box purposefully chooses broken people and suggests that the box feeds off fear and that Polly shouldn't be afraid of dying. The hourglass runs out, ending Polly's experience with the box.
Lainie and her family awaken to find the house in disarray. Polly emerges from her house to find the box is gone and her neighbor is still alive. Polly reunites with Lainie and Aly before going to check on Tara. Tara claims to not recognize Polly or know about the box. Polly's phone rings but she ignores it. In Tara's home, it is revealed she is listening to the box and has killed her parents as well as cut off several fingers. Her phone starts to ring.
Vicious was originally scheduled for a theatrical release on August 8, 2025,[3] before being moved forward to February 28, 2025,[7] and then being removed from Paramount's release schedule in December 2024.[8]
In August 2025, it was announced that the theatrical release was cancelled and was instead released on Paramount+ and digital formats on October 10, 2025.[9] The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 19, 2025.[10][11]
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