“How much punishment can a body take?!” I found myself wondering about twenty minutes from the end of For the Sake of Vicious. Because for a film that starts as a deadly serious interrogation about some incredibly icky themes, the way the film turns on a dime had me scrambling to keep up.

Before we get to the bloodletting, we’re introduced to our two main characters in a couple of comedic and slick scenes. First there’s the wild-eyed Chris (Nick Smyth) who plays whack-a-mole on the head of Alan (Colin Paradine) in some industrial building while Alan’s accomplice Gerald (James Fler) lies unconscious on the ground. Then we meet the other player in this game; a nurse named Romina (Lora Burke) who is introduced digging through a candy bowl to find her son’s favorite candy while the on-duty nurse side-eyes her. It’s a funny moment that also helps establish Romina as she challenges the nurse’s disapproval by grabbing a handful of candy and leaving.

It’s Halloween and her kid is being babysat by her mother, but Romina makes a stop at her house, candy and costume in tow, before heading over to pick him up. It’s a good thing, too, because as she enters her kitchen she sees the unconscious body of Alan on the floor. Then she notices Chris leaning against the fridge and she takes off running. Chris gives chase, throwing hairs and tables with abandon to get to her in a minor game of cat-and-mouse that not only foreshadows later events but establishes the layout of the house. A house we’re going to spend the next ~80 minutes in.

“I’m not going to hurt you. You remember me?” he asks and while she shakes her head “no,” a little later he hands her a manila envelope that tells her everything she needs to know. His daughter Charlotte was her patient and Charlotte was raped. And Alan, the man lying unconscious on Romina’s floor? Chris knows he did it. Took Alan to court and everything. But Alan is a big time property owner; he owns the house he’s currently lying unconscious in, in fact. He has a lot of power and a shadowy group of ominous associates who intimidate people by parking their cars outside their homes at night.

All Chris wants is for Alan to confess to assaulting his daught. And he has laid out on Romina’s kitchen table a plethora of tools to help extract that confession. Of course, things aren’t always what they seem and upon waking, Alan begs Romina to not listen to Alan: “I don’t know what he told you but you’re only getting one side of a very complicated story told to you by a very sick individual.” As this little morality play continues, there comes a “Knock. Knock. Knock” at the front door followed by an intense camera close-up of the handle turning slowly.

And this is when it gets really violent.

Directed and written by Gabriel Carrer and Reese Evenshen, For the Sake of Vicious has a bad title, a somewhat iffy script and good direction. The first half of the film is staged as an interrogation, with Chris using all sorts of tools to get Alan to confess to his crimes. Romina, meanwhile, is stuck in the middle, unsure how to proceed. The first part of the film does a fantastic job of keeping the tension buzzing as it focuses on dialogue-based twists and turns that keeps the viewers unsettled.

Some of the whats, whys and whens are a little confused, though, to the point I couldn’t quite understand Romina’s desire to stay in the room and her flip-flopping on who to believe. I didn’t buy that this woman who had a Halloween date with her kid would entertain this ridiculous situation when she had a number of opportunities to call the police and end it. The script in these early interactions feels a bit half-baked and didn’t satisfactorily build character motivations for me, outside of Chris’s unwavering belief that Alan hurt his daughter. But the tension builds over the first forty minutes to the point that, at the midpoint, things get bonkers and the tone completely shifts into a home invasion film.

I say this, even though some will consider it a spoiler, because it’s here that the movie completely finds its footing and delivers an intense and incredibly violent second half that stuns. Stuck in the house with groups of mysterious thugs breaking in turns into hand-fights and shootouts and chase scenes that encompass Romina’s entire house.

And reader? This house sees some shit.

The violence hits hard and comes fast and the blood is copious. But instead of going the ultraviolent, over-the-top cheese route, For the Sake of Vicious makes you feel each hammer blow and each knife stab and each face gouge. Gabriel and Reese put their protagonists through the shit and I always appreciate it when filmmakers don’t hold back on their characters. But they’ve also spiked the action with some incredible moments of dark humor.

For example, at one point Romina has a relatively normal conversation with her kid on the phone, telling him she’ll have to pick him up in the morning and apologizing for not being there on Halloween…while she angrily wags a finger at Chris while simultaneously trying to keep Alan from choking on his tongue while he’s seizures. It’s a surreal moment and the juxtaposition of a calm, caring mother angrily miming her displeasure at Chris while helping Alan felt absurdly real. Later, the wounded nurse goes for her hidden stash of Vodka to douse a wound before taking a swig for herself. She then hands it to another wounded man, who takes a swig and hands it back to Romina, as she swings a kettle at an attacker…and then takes another swig, for good measure. These absurd moments that mix dark humor with real life-and-death situations work exceedingly well.

Ultimately, For the Sake of Vicious succeeds because of the directors’ ability to tighten the tense and claustrophobic opening situation to its breaking point before relieving that tension valve...only to throw new challenges at the protagonists. The acting might be a bit stiff in parts (Chris is a little too wide-eyed maniacal) and the script could have more clearly identified the players and motivations, particularly with Romina’s character, but that’s not what I’m going to remember of this delicious black comedy thriller. It’ll be the hammer, dangling in the eye of a motorcycle-helmet-clad thug and the carnage unleashed in such a small house.