Taut, ultra-violent "For the Sake of Vicious" is just that

For the Sake of Vicious (2021)


If ever there was a movie title that lacked all pretenses—and lets you know immediately if it’s for you or not—“For the Sake of Vicious” is it. Directors Gabriel Career & Reese Eveneshen (the former receiving a story credit and the latter writing the script) are pure and ruthless in their intent, and the squeamish is not invited. An ultra-violent action thriller set over the course of one October 31st, this is the type of genre exercise that gets you gritting your teeth while still trying to watch dead-on, but wondering afterward what it was all for anyway. Well, it’s for the sake of being mean as all hell.


“For the Sake of Vicious” wastes no time on a credit sequence, getting straight to the nasty business and not really letting up. At the end of a long shift at the hospital on Halloween, nurse Romina (Lora Burke) expects to just take her son trick or treating. She did not ask to have her house invaded. But what Romina walks into is a hostage situation: her landlord, Alan (Colin Paradine), is bruised and bloodied on her kitchen floor, and the inept intruder, Chris (Nick Smyth), asks one thing from her: keep Alan alive until he confesses that he raped Chris’ young daughter. As if she’s a courtroom clerk, Romina is stuck in the middle. The night just goes from bad to worse when masked bad guys force themselves into the house, forcing Romina to join Chris. 


Romina’s going to need more than a Magic Eraser to get rid of all the bloodstains by the end of the night, and some viewers will need more than violence to get through the brutally well-made “For the Sake of Vicious.” Chris’ revenge scheme and the mayhem that follows all hinges on something quite queasy—his daughter being raped, and whether or not Alan has committed the crime—but the true answer to the mystery isn’t hard to figure out. Co-director Reese Eveneshen’s script doesn’t seem to have much else in its back pocket besides ways of picking off the intruders with hammers, toilet seat lids, guns, knives, and handfuls of broken glass. For mild specificity, the circumstances are set on Halloween night. Even if this festive backdrop could have been more cleverly integrated, it does allow the goons to wear skeleton and ghoul masks, blending in on the streets (and gives the filmmakers an excuse to carve pumpkins and set up decorations everywhere). Pay no mind to the neighbors not calling the cops after a few loud gunshots. 


Theoretically, “For the Sake of Vicious” has the right idea, keeping its genre storytelling taut and contained. Director Gabriel Career and Foxgrinder’s cool synth score is propulsive for the action, and there’s a gnarly, insanely watchable knockabout fight in Romina’s bathroom. Out of all the performers, Lora Burke fares the best as Romina, not only conveying the terror of having one’s home invaded but holding her own during the action when her instincts kick in. If you’re picking up what it’s putting down, this is an unrelenting little number. It’s just too bad that these men won’t just get the hell out of Romina’s house and let her relax.


Grade: C +


Dread released “For the Sake of Vicious” (80 min.) to On Demand on April 20, 2021.

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