Vicious ending explained: All she had to do was... nothing

'What's in the box?' You might want to ask this in Bryan Bertino's latest horror film.

We don't know for sure, but whatever it is, it's vicious, as you can tell from the title. The movie stars Dakota Fanning as the protagonist, a broken woman living in a rented house, alongside Kathryn Hunter, Mary McCormack, Rachel Blanchard, and more also star.

A box is at the center of the story. A box that feeds on the fear of others. Whoever has this thing in their house, it will ask them for offerings, which are something they hate, something they need, and something they love.

However, even after giving everything this box wants, the torment never ends and things just keep happening to whoever it has cursed. In this case, it is Dakota Fanning's Polly who receives this box from an old woman. And when she isn't able to get rid of this box, she passes this cursed object to her neighbor.

How does Vicious end?

The Dakota Fanning movie ends with her character trying everything that she could in order to satisfy this 'hungry' box. It also comes with an hourglass, which this old woman has given to Polly, too. Now, as the woman explained before being kicked out, Polly will die as soon as the sand runs out.

Vicious then truly begins when Polly starts doing what this box wants. So, she gives it her pack of cigarettes, implying that she hates smoking. This vicious box is smart and rejects it, as he knows she doesn't hate smoking. Realizing this, she sacrifices her cross necklace because she hates God now.

Now the second thing this box demands is something Polly needs. So she cuts off her pinky finger. But then this box doesn't want her to be Johnathan Wick and thinks that she needs her index finger more. She cuts it too, and the box accepts. Ouch!

Finally, it's time she gives this vicious box something she loves. At the beginning of the film, we see that Polly is really fond of Aly, her sister's daughter. After she has sacrificed two of the three things the box needs, somebody calls Polly's sister at least a dozen times, impersonating her.

Polly realizes it's this box's doing and rushes to her sister's house, just to find everyone dead. She is grieving but she also wants to get rid of this curse. So she cuts a lock from Aly's hair and gives it to the box. It accepts. Happy ending, right?

Wrong.

Things don't stop here and eventually she has to pass on the box to her sister's neighbor after realizing that the old woman passed her this, so doing the same might lift the curse.

However, the old woman returns with this vicious box again, but this time, Polly kills her. The dying woman advises her not to fear death, which she takes and lets the time run out.

Meaning of Vicious explained by the director

Though Vicious is a horror movie, it has a deeper meaning, as Bertino explained to Polygon, saying that,

"I certainly think that at the end of the day, this movie has a lightness that some of my movies haven’t. To me, the message is that you’re never really going to escape things, so you just have to keep going."

Maybe Polly didn't have to lose two fingers after all. But then, who has escaped their own demons without sacrificing something?