Vicious Ending Explained: The Simple Way Dakota Fanning’s Polly Survived The Curse

The new horror film Vicious on Paramount+ has audiences talking about its intense ending. The movie stars Dakota Fanning as Polly, a woman tormented by a cursed box. After a night of terror and shocking sacrifices, the story concludes in a way that offers a surprising and meaningful message about fear itself. The answer was much simpler than anyone expected.

What Happens In The Movie Vicious?

Polly’s life is already difficult when a stranger knocks on her door one night. An old woman, played by Kathryn Hunter, comes inside and leaves a small black box and an hourglass. She tells Polly she is going to die unless she plays a game. The rules are terrifying: Polly must put three things into the box before the sand runs out. She must give it something she hates, something she needs, and something she loves.

Trapped in her home, Polly tries to obey. Her first attempts fail because the box seems to know her true feelings. She is forced to make brutal physical sacrifices, including cutting off parts of her own body. The box also uses phone calls, mimicking the voices of her family, to psychologically torture her and threaten her loved ones. In a state of panic, Polly even tries to pass the curse to someone else, a young woman named Tara, hoping it will save her.

How Does The Vicious Movie End? Polly’s Realization

After trying everything, Polly is confronted by the old woman again. In a struggle, Polly kills her. With her final breaths, the old woman gives Polly crucial advice: the box needs fear, and she should not be afraid of death.

This changes everything for Polly. She stops trying to satisfy the box. She stops making new offerings. Instead, she simply lets the sand in the hourglass run out and accepts whatever will happen. When morning comes, she is still alive. She finds her family members, whom she believed were dead, are safe and well.

In the final scene, Polly’s phone rings again. She looks at it but chooses not to answer. She lights a cigarette, and the ringing stops. The film then cuts to Tara, the woman Polly gave the box to. We see Tara has been mutilated and has killed her own parents, showing the curse has taken hold of its new victim.

The True Meaning Of The Box And The Ending

The director of Vicious, Bryan Bertino, has explained that the box is a powerful metaphor for anxiety and panic attacks. He wrote the film based on his own experiences with these feelings. The box represents that overwhelming sense of dread that demands your attention and makes you think you must do something to make it stop.

“To me, the message is that you’re never really going to escape things, so you just have to keep going,” Bertino said about the film’s ending.

The key to surviving was not to win the game, but to stop playing. The box fed on Polly’s fear and her desperate actions. When she finally stopped being afraid and stopped reacting, its power over her was broken. However, the ending is not perfectly happy. The phone still rings, meaning the anxiety is still there in her life. Polly’s victory is learning to ignore its call and live with it.

The ending also shows the curse continuing with Tara. This highlights how personal these battles are. Polly tries to warn Tara, but Tara cannot listen or trust her. Bertino explained this reflects real life, where you cannot always help others escape their own struggles, even if you’ve been through something similar.

Vicious is now streaming exclusively on Paramount+ and is available for digital purchase.

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