‘Vicious’ Review: Dakota Fanning Screams Her Way Through a Horror Endurance Test That Wears Itself Out

After launching a home-invasion franchise with the simple premise of three masked figures terrorizing a couple on the rocks, “The Strangers” creator Bryan Bertino has maintained his sensibility as a writer-director, spinning other original horror chamber pieces unmoored by sympathy. Now, the horror helmer’s latest effort shows characteristic daring in its detachment.

Generically titled “Vicious,” the film offers a spare setup — a depressed young woman is wracked by hallucinations — with little definition of what is afflicting her or why. The writer-director doesn’t solicit sympathy for Polly (played by Dakota Fanning) or impose meaning on her suffering. It’s a very naked approach to horror, entirely propped up on formal execution. In other words, he risks leaving the audience with nothing. And that comes to pass in “Vicious,” which trickles down to Paramount’s streaming service after being slashed from the studio’s theatrical slate.

Bertino finds an ample engine in Fanning,…