Vivarium

While I already miss the experience of seeing these films in a theatre, Vivarium does evoke TV precedents, most notably Twilight Zone in the cleanness of its premise and the parsing out of dark details on a need-to-know basis.

Vivarium is a wonderfully strange and gripping thriller that examines the stresses of homeownership and starting a family, perhaps all-too-soon.

You’re reminded of the all-time “Twilight Zone” chillers that left you pondering and unsettled in your living room, questioning how well you knew the people sitting next to you. Given the current state of things, you’ll have to experience Vivarium in much the same way.

The movie sometimes overstates its ideas, but Poots keeps Vivarium from being just a coy, chilly intellectual exercise. She adds flesh and soul to what might be the film’s most disturbing notion: In some ways, we all become encased in the lives we have stumbled into.

If you can look past the gallingly obvious and derivative metaphor, Vivarium has its moments of effective "Twilight Zone" creepiness.

Finnegan offers a vision of domesticity as a soul-sucking grind, done for the benefit of malevolent overlords. His film chills the mind more than the spine.

Vivarium isn’t a fun watch, and not just because it’s generally claustrophobic and insistently bleak.

A great piece of mindf**kery. If you enjoy weird and cerebral horror, you’ll dig this movie.

What a bizarre film! I kind of liked it, in the vein as ‘under the skin’, but without the real menace. The acting was decent enough, but the direction was a bit all over the place. I’d watch it again, but wouldn't be in a hurry to.

"Vivarium" is one of those movies that pulls you in with an interesting concept but leaves you questioning everything, especially the choices the characters make. The story follows a couple who find themselves trapped in a seemingly endless suburban neighborhood, forced into a bizarre and unsettling routine. The mystery keeps you engaged, but the characters’ decisions often feel frustrating. Not in a "bad script" way, but in a way that makes you wonder if they were written to be this passive on purpose. The pacing leans toward slow-burn horror, relying more on psychological unease than traditional scares. The directing does a solid job of maintaining tension, making the whole thing feel claustrophobic and surreal. The cinematography enhances this with sterile, repetitive visuals that emphasize the artificiality of their world. Acting-wise, Imogen Poots delivers a strong performance, while Jesse Eisenberg brings his usual style, which sometimes works but occasionally feels forced. The real standout is the child actor, his unsettling presence adds a lot to the film’s eerie atmosphere. There’s a lot of subtlety in how he moves and reacts, making you wonder whether his voice was altered or dubbed over in post. The script keeps things cryptic, and while that works for the tone, it also leaves some moments feeling underdeveloped. The lack of clear explanations may frustrate some viewers, but it’s clear that the movie is more about the experience than the answers. The sound design plays a big role in the tension, using unsettling audio cues to make certain scenes even more uncomfortable. Overall, Vivarium is a strange, thought-provoking film that raises more questions than it answers. If you like psychological horror with a heavy dose of surrealism, it’s worth a watch. Just don’t expect everything to make sense.

Nice idea but tasteless like the fruits in house number 9. At some point, the camera gets completely detached from storytelling and fixates on liminal space views over and over and over again. This is not what you want, it is what you fear in your most nightmarish dreams moments before waking up.

Disturbing, and seemingly pointless. Warning: if real-life plants the seeds of frustration and nihilism in you, this movie will make you feel worse.