Vicious Fun movie review & film summary (2021)

There’s guys like Fritz (Julian Richings), a nebbish accountant with a clown fetish, and yuppie Bob (Ari Millen), a homicidal Bundy-esque “pickup artist.” There’s also one woman, and her name is Carrie (Amber Goldfarb). Carrie wears a leather jacket, has slicked-back blonde hair, and enjoys murdering other serial killers, most of whom are either outright misogynistic, like Bob, or psychopathically self-absorbed. 

Carrie not only helps Joel to escape certain death; she also teaches him the value of consent. Which is presumably important since Bob’s next target is Sarah (Alexa Rose Steele), Joel’s attractive, but uninterested roommate. Carrie’s also not much of a character; she saves Joel, and also points out all the ways that he’s obviously out of his element. If you enjoy watching barrel-penned fish get got with a BB gun, you’re bound to love “Vicious Fun.”  

“Vicious Fun” courts that kind of glib dismissal since so much of the movie reassures viewers that its creators are also addicted to the formulaic slasher movies that they kind of, sort of mock. But being aware of horror movies cliches isn’t the same thing as criticizing (or thoughtfully commenting on) them. For proof, see “Vicious Fun,” a horror satire whose latent sexism is that much more unfortunate given that Carrie, in a later scene, warns Joel that he can’t make Sarah like him: “You can’t force a person to feel something, or trick them into loving you. You’re not entitled to that.” That’s the message the makers of “Vicious Fun” soft-shoe up to, but never really lay into. 

The rest of the movie revolves around a graphic, but otherwise unmoving killing spree as Joel tries to run away from Bob and other schticky antagonists. You never really have to wonder what motivates killers like ninja assassin Hideo (Sean Baek) or fuming giant Mike (Robert Maillet), because they’re obviously what they look like, and are mostly defined by the kind of blustery, posturing dialogue that would make most professional wrestlers blush. Hideo boasts about the time he hid “for 16 consecutive hours lying in wait for my mark while I slowed my heartbeat to almost nothing.” Then he asks: “Have you ever bitten into a kidney?” Mike throws down by comparing himself to a shark: “I just want to hunt, to live by pure instinct.”