Macabre...ish Horror Review: Vivarium

Vivarium, 2019/ 1 hr 39 min

A young couple, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots), are house hunting and visit a strange real estate agent, Martin (Jonathan Aris) who tell them about a new development called Yonder. All of the houses are identical, green and it’s eerily empty, sterile and silent. They are shown lot #9 and the agent gives them a weird tour of a staged house, complete with clothes and food.

Martin disappears while they are looking, Gemma and Tom are totally creeped out and when they attempt to leave the subdivision, they become lost and find it impossible to leave. And oddly, they keep returning to lot #9, every route, every turn, returns them to the same house.

Then eventually it gets dark and they run out of gas and spend then night in House #9. They continue to try to escape, to no avail, they end up back at #9 and find someone has left the food and so they burn the house to the ground.

They wake up to another care package, containing an infant and the box it says, ‘Raise the child and be released’. Oh and the house they burned down is back and that kid is growing super fast and he’s weird. By day 98 they are exhausted and they hate this kid and their existence.

There is a way out of this but it not what they expected but it seems they have no choice.

This is a scifi suspense/fantasy with a tiny cast and very interesting concept that has strong Twilight Zone: The Movie vibe. This movie is about the trap and the unknown and nothing is known until the end. Eerie, complete with a miserable ending. This is not a scary movie and would be good for someone that doesn’t really want scary but enjoys a creepy story.