VICIOUS

10.10.25 Paramount+

Tom Schraeder, Composer

Bryan Bertino, Director

Polly receives a mysterious box that comes with instructions to place three things inside: something you need, something you hate, and something you love. What begins as a strange ritual quickly unravels into a waking nightmare as she becomes trapped in a terrifying world where reality bends and memory betrays. As time slips away, she must confront the darkness not just around her, but within her, before it consumes everything and everyone she's ever known.

Vicious: Soundtrack Bio

Lakeshore Records has released Vicious—Music from the Paramount+ Original Movie digitally today October 10, featuring music by composer Tom Schraeder (The Dark and the Wicked). Schraeder is regarded as an inventive and sought-after composer in the genre, known for weaving unsettling textures with emotional resonance. With this score, his second collaboration with Bertino, he deepened that approach. Scoring from Bertino’s script before shooting began, Schraeder developed themes that evolved alongside the film - scaling from an initial 64-piece orchestral concept to a more intimate score that mirrors Dakota Fanning’s character’s breath, endurance, and inner unraveling. 

The recording process was just as unorthodox. Schraeder collaborated with musicians like Clive Deamer (Radiohead, Portishead), and Stan Harrison (Radiohead, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen), encouraging them to “explore their instruments in unconventional ways” and invent sounds outside tradition - preparing pianos, bowing and submerging gongs underwater, and even building his own terrifying-sounding “Terror Box,” which became central to the score. Paramount gave him a rare office on the lot, where he worked alongside the edit team, weaving live recordings directly into the cut. Vicious is streaming now exclusively on Paramount+.

Notes Schraeder: “Working on the score for Vicious didn’t feel like a composer and director collaboration. It’s more like we’re bandmates, with Bryan as frontman and me helping bring his vision to life.”