This falls into the What the fuck did I just watch? genre of films.
Vivarium is a fairly new movie, so I’m not going to dive too deeply into the plot, especially after the midpoint. It’s about a young couple (Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg) who go house-hunting, kind of reluctantly, with an awkward real estate agent, played extra awkwardly by Jonathan Aris. They come to a subdivision of cookie cutter houses that put all other cookie cutter neighborhoods to shame. After a quick tour of the house, with the couple being unimpressed, the real estate agent seemingly disappears. And then things really start getting weird.
The couple is stuck in this subdivision, apparently with no way to escape. They drive around in circles, unable to find an exit. After running out of gas, they walk for hours only to end up back at the house originally shown to them by the salesman. So, naturally, they burn it down. (If it seems I’ve giving away too much of the plot, rest assured I’m not; all of this is in the trailer and takes up maybe the first quarter of the film.) After they burn down the house, it magically reappears overnight, along with a box . . . with a baby in it.
This movie gets super bizarre, more and more so as it progresses. At first I felt there was intent to relay a message to the audience, that once you’re roped into parenthood, especially in suburbia, there is no escape; you will live the cookie cutter life society has carved out for you. Maybe this intent is there, but as the weirdness became ever more present, I felt less and less this was the case.
The baby, as it turns out, grows pretty damn quickly, and Senan Jennings, playing the young boy, is superbly creepy. In fact, the most frightening part of the movie is probably his performance.
With all the high strangeness going on, there has to be a reveal, right? The curtain must finally be pulled back to show why all this is happening, wouldn’t you say? Well, maybe . . .
I was left kind of scratching my head, as was my wife. And she brought up a good question: if the couple had been more accepting of their situation, would things have turned out differently? I don’t know . . .
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 0
Special Effects - 6
Nudity/Sexuality - 2
Wow Factor - 6
Acting - 5 (mostly great, but I’m not sure Jesse Eisenberg was the right choice)
Fear Factor - 6
Story/Plot/Originality - 8
Cinematography/Atmosphere - 7
Sound/Music - 4 (at times, I could not understand dialogue)
Fun Factor - 4
Vivarium gets an overall PHEMSA of 48. It’s a very strange flick, and not one you want to stop once you’ve started. You want to know what the fuck is happening! You can find it for free on Amazon.
For some literary weirdness that will also have you wondering what the fuck is going on, check out Grandpappy!