I can not personally think of anything more horrifying than being stuck in an endless loop with no foreseeable end or escape. Something about the constant repetition of anything with no change in pattern scares the living daylights out of me and if there's one thing that Lorcan Finnegan's suburban nightmare Vivarium does right, it's that. This movie is an undeniably eerie take on the psychological horror genre that has so much potential to be greater, especially with the two leads having as much fantastic talent as they do. Unfortunately, I feel as if this was ultimately wasted due to how lackluster and nonsensical many of this film's choices were. Even though the set design was utilized well and some of the cinematography was interesting, this movie fails to deliver on any front that most modern horror films do. While the drab monotony of suburbia definitely provides for one of this film's most terrifying elements, none of the writing or direction are ever able to bring together a satisfying or understandable story.
Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are a young couple looking to move out of their small apartment into a house of their own and possibly starting a family. When they schedule a home tour with peculiar realtor Martin (Jonathan Aris), he takes them to a community named Yonder in which every home on every street looks identical. Abandoning them there with a tiny infant, the couple begin to fall into a mesmerizing, suburban nightmare. This premise is something that absolutely terrified me from the start. One of my biggest fears is absolute uniformity and while I'm definitely not alone on that, this film really takes that theme and runs with it. My favorite aspect of this film was how well it created this world with such a limited set and the endless possibilities that arose from their situation. The seemingly endless rows of houses and neighborhoods all intertwining made for such an eerie atmosphere and this alone genuinely scared me. I loved the production design and how well these artists turn one single, cookie-cutter house into a hell-hole of terror. Many of the outside shots of the neighborhood looked a bit wonky in regards to the visual effects and not much of it seemed too believable, but I honestly think that actually helped this film. Having Gemma and Tom's world be just slightly offputting or a bit too plastic made the story that much creepier. It's also surprising how well they held up despite what was happening to them because I would have almost instantly gone insane. The performances from Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg were also fantastic. They are both incredibly versatile and seeing them in an actual horror film only solidified how much I appreciate their range of abilities. Senan Jennings and Eanna Hardwicke were also great as the young and older version of the boy, respectively, that they were forced to raise. Both actors carried such an unbelievably unsettling energy to them that suited the story extremely well. While Poots and Eisenberg's portrayals of this couple were the most standout parts, unfortunately, they were far too good for a film like this.
Lorcan Finnegan and Garret Shanley's script was painfully bad and even in the simplest of dialogue, I could not get myself to believe any of these characters. Finnegan is lucky that he had two powerhouse performers in Poots and Eisenberg or else the shining laziness of his script would have come to the forefront much easier. I was never able to feel for any of these characters because of the lack of backstory and the ambiguity of many of this film's choices did not pay off. So many things were left unexplained, such as the alien subplot and some creative choices about the aging of the young child but they were never resolved. A film like this would greatly benefit from some resolution about those things and despite how ridiculous it might make the script, at least people would have a coherent understanding about why they just watched what they did. Worst of all, however, Vivarium suffers from Finnegan's aimless direction, as he never seems to know what to do with this story. The first twenty minutes of this movie are incredibly compelling and the last twenty minutes, despite its predictability, caught my attention as well. The entire middle hour, however, could have been cut and I would have felt the same way about the film as I do now. The entire second act of this film is wasted with unnecessary scenes involving the child and the couple struggling to figure out what to do with it. Included in this middle section were a plethora of scenes highlighting how Gemma's motherly instincts clashed with Tom's desire to straight up off the kid. While this dynamic between them was interesting, I really wish it could have been explored more. Nothing of importance happened in the middle hour of this film to help explain its conclusion and that is typically (always) the point of a second act. Time in this film also never seems to exist and although there is daytime and nighttime, the passing of time itself is made so unclear. I never knew for how long Gemma and Tom were holed up in the house raising the kid, whether it be a few months or even years. This aspect might have added to the ambiguous horror of the story but it definitely did not aid the pacing of the film.
Despite me just recently learning about Vivarium, I was incredibly excited to see what kind of horror energy Eisenberg and Poots could bring over since their fantastic turn in the dark comedy The Art of Self-Defense from last year. However, while these two leads make for the best parts of this movie, they were vastly underappreciated as they were given such a dull and confusing script that never gave them their due justice. This film is an undoubtedly creepy watch if one is simply looking to feel uncomfortable about the tedium of suburban America but in regards to telling an actually interesting horror story, Finnegan massively misses the mark.
My Rating: ★★
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