The Vicious Kind

Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.0

The "d" in the title is superfluous. College student Peter (Alex Frost) drags home his vampy girlfriend (Brittany Snow) to his father's house on holiday, but Peter's older brother (Adam Scott) haunts the scene: he's heartbroken over his ex-girlfriend, he's at war with their father (the ever-reliable J.K. Simmons) and he has feelings for his brother's girl (because she looks like his ex). The opening dissertation on how awful women are - by Scott's 'misogynist' character - is initially played as the ranting of a twitchy, chain-smoking lunatic ... but as it turns out, the longer the movie goes on, the more it starts to believe he's right: Scott and Frost's Mom cheated on their Dad (before she died), Snow cheats on Frost with Scott and Scott regularly utilizes the services of a prostitute (there's another woman mentioned at some point: all we know about her are her skills at oral sex). The men are arguably no better, and it's only time before Frost's callow lad becomes a woman-hater like the other males in his family. The performances add a degree of humanity to the proceedings, but there's a sense of hopelessness in its portrayal of relationships that makes this a sour experience.