Taylor Sheridan’s charming backstory as a theater kid who spent his weekends on a Texas ranch is almost too perfect. His Yellowstone franchise revived the Western genre and catapulted it to the greatest heights of TV success. It was the Paramount Network’s first scripted series, and Sheridan takes several roles throughout its ongoing run. He’s parlayed that victory into two prequels and an excellent new show about Bass Reeves. Before all that, however, he learned a few valuable lessons on the set of Vile, an awful torture horror movie. Everyone needs a dry run or two.
Torture horror seemed to rule the world in the 2000s. Shockingly, everyone got tired of watching half-written characters get torn apart in a dingy basement. Saw is still around, but it’s seen as a nostalgia offering and celebrated for its adherence to the old ways. Like slasher movies, the most notable examples inspired countless cheap knock-offs that gradually choked interest in the subgenre. Vile probably isn’t the worst feature on Saw‘s coattails, but it’s comfortable in that camp.
RELATED: What Makes Yellowstone Such A Popular Show?
What is Vile about?
|
Director |
Taylor Sheridan |
|---|---|
|
Writers |
Eric Jay Beck and Rob Kowsaluk |
|
Starring |
Eric Jay Beck, April Matson, Greg Cipes |
|
Runtime |
88 Minutes |
Vile follows Nick, Tayler, Tony, and Kai, four twenty-somethings on a camping trip. They run low on fuel and stop at a remote gas station. A beautiful woman named Diane asks for a ride. Nick obliges, driving the young lady to her immobile truck a few miles away. She dons a mask and incapacitates the four friends with a can of sleeping gas. They wake up tied to chairs in a filthy house, joined by five strangers. A video explains their situation. They have devices attached to their necks that gather the hormones their brains secrete. Any attempt to remove the device will kill them. These nine strangers must fill a jar with oxytocin, dopamine, and adrenaline. They find weapons of all shapes and sizes. The video explains that they’ll have to torture each other to gather the hormones and open the door. If they fail to reach the threshold in 24 hours, they’ll all die. These nine strangers will subject themselves and each other to tremendous violence to survive.
What is Vile‘s Rotten Tomatoes score?
Vile doesn’t have enough accepted reviews to earn an official critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes. It lists three professional takes on the film. Each denigrated it mercilessly. Positive reviews can be found, but they are few and far between. Over 250 audience members granted Vile a 30% positive score with an average rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars. Most reviews accurately describe it as an uninspired Saw knock-off. Vile suffers many weaknesses common to its subgenre. Its characters lack humanity and personality. It’s almost impossible to care what happens to the nine nobodies trapped in the house. They suffer one brutal torment after another, screaming and crying all the while, and most viewers will see them as little more than meat to be slaughtered.
The acting is unimpressive, delivered by a mix of talents who seem to lack faith in the material. Greg Cipes, the beloved voice actor behind Beast Boy in Teen Titans, makes his penultimate live-action film appearance here before a seemingly permanent move to the booth. The premise has some appeal. The script points out one of its biggest logical problems. The hormones gathered by the devices are generated in situations other than pain. Sex would have resolved the problem more effectively than violence, with almost no side effects or risk of death. Beck and Kowsaluk had that thought, slid it into the script, and then carried on anyway. That takes confidence.
Vile is available to stream for free on Tubi
What did Taylor Sheridan have to say about Vile?
While promoting his 2017 film Wind River, Sheridan spoke to Rotten Tomatoes. He explained that he doesn’t consider Vile his directorial debut while acknowledging its place in his filmography. He said:
A friend of mine raised — I don’t know what he raised — 20 grand or something, and cast his buddies, and wrote this bad horror movie, that I told him not to direct. He was going to direct it and produce it, and he started and freaked out, and called and said, “Can you help me?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll try.” I kind of kept the ship pointed straight, and they went off and edited, and did what they did. I think it’s generous to call me the director. I think he was try to say thank you, in some way. It was an excellent opportunity to point a camera and learn some lessons that actually benefited me on Wind River.
Eric Jay Beck has gone on to write and act in episodes of Yellowstone, continuing his professional relationship with Sheridan. He seems to view this film, which will always be listed as his directorial debut, as more of a practice run than an artistic project.
Vile is forgotten by most, but it still sits resolutely on Taylor Sheridan’s list of credits. There are two ways to view the film. It’s either a pitiable cash-in on a subgenre that had passed its sell-by date or a group of friends putting together their first horror film as a lark. Either way, it will live on as a striking poster on Tubi that most skip past.
