Sick (2023).
I have to admit, I had pretty low expectations for Sick, which may have been a little unfair of me. As you probably know, I stay pretty spoiler free for the most part - I don’t watch trailers, and rarely read descriptions, so when I saw this pop up and saw that COVID was going to be a big part of the plot line, I immediately thought it was going to be some kind of contagion zombie film, and that it was not.
The film starts in the midst of the pandemic, in of April 2020. States are in lockdown, toilet paper is scarce, and tempers are high. We’re following a college student named Tyler through the store as he slowly picks over what’s left in the grocery store. He gets a text…it’s from an unknown number. At first they’re playful, but soon they’re creepy, like “Nice ass.” and Tyler leaves the store in a huff…but when he gets home, someone is waiting for him.
We then cut to Parker and Miri, two girls looking to quarantine in style. School is canceled, so the two hightail it to Parker’s luxurious cabin in the middle of nowhere, and well…you know how these movies go. They’re not the only two there, kicking off a cat and mouse game with brutal implications. Why is someone trying to kill these women, and will Parker and Miri make it out alive?
Home invasion thrillers are a dime a dozen but I knew a few minutes in that this was different than the typical lower budget, late 90’s style slashers. Halfway through, I remember thinking, “This is like the beginning of Scream, but the whole movie and done through text.” Side note, I really like the way text messages show up on screen in this - it’s not clumsy, it’s clean, it’s well done. So, much like Ghostface, this isn’t your unstoppable force kind of villain. It’s not Michael Myers who can walk through gunshots and stabbings. This person is brutal, yet kind of a klutz, and in the first kill attempt, we see that, because there’s a struggle. And it was during that struggle that I started noticing how well the action was shot. It was kinetic, with a sense of voyeurism but not to the point of sickness like in the later Bourne films or Tony Scott’s later movies. The camera movements made sense. Later on during these fight scenes, I felt the same way. They were electric, and when the film was over, I realized why. This is directed by John Hyams, Peter Hyams son and director of the last two Universal Soldier films. And remember that Scream observation? Turns out it was written by Kevin Williamson, which explains both my connection to that series and the odd pop culture stuff sprinkled throughout. Had I known they were involved with this beforehand, I’d have probably been more excited to see it. One of the pitfalls of trying to go into films knowing as little as possible.
The gore in the film is well done and there are some pretty gruesome kills. This film is easy to watch, it’s currently streaming on Peacock. Go and check it out, I think that, even with the dumb motivation of the person with the knife, you’ll still have a good time. Okay, I can’t get critical without talking about that last piece, so if you haven’t seen Sick, go check it out, I really do recommend it. From this point on, if you continue listening, there will be spoilers, so that’s on you. Again, I’m about to spoil the motivation for the goings on in Sick.
After Parker kills the intruder in particularly gruesome fashion, we find out that there’s another one. So she runs from the new killer and eventually makes her way out to the main road, where she sees a car coming down the road. She flags it down, but the woman inside is refusing her entry because she doesn’t have a mask. It’s obviously played for laughs - I watched the trailer afterward and it’s used as a glimpse into masking absurdism, but the moment feels a bit out of place in the film. Eventually she exclaims, “Oh, I’ve got an extra one!” which happens to be sealed in a plastic bag. Parker puts the mask on, and GUESS WHAT? It’s got chloroform on it, because this lady is in on the whole thing. First off, this makes no sense at all that the woman would have put a mask into a bag with chloroform on it and sealed it up to look like it just came from a fresh box, because WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT? It’s a script weakness manufactured for this moment and this moment only.
Anyway, we find out that the person Parker murdered was the son of this family, and now she has to deal with the mother and father. The reason they’re killing people is because the college students broke quarantine and had a party, and someone got COVID which eventually led to their other son getting COVID who died. Now that’s both pretty fucking far fetched motivation for one person, but for a whole family? You’re telling me that the mother, dad, and surviving son just decided to become murderous lunatics based on a flimsy link chain of possible COVID spreading college kids? Frankly speaking, it’s a really dumb driving force for the villains here. It also doesn’t make sense that this family that’s grieving hard enough to become savage beasts would be texting the kids the way they are, like the “Nice ass.” text to Tyler at the beginning of the film. It’s cartoonish, and while there are funny bits in most horror films, this isn’t a dark comedy - it’s a straight up slasher film.
All that stupidity aside, I had a really fun time with the film. It’s never ‘scary’, but it’s definitely thrilling as the two girls have to evade the killers through (and around) the home relentlessly for the last two-thirds of the film. It’s simple and brutal, and I like that. By the way, the home that they’re in, is awesome. It’s this very expensive looking log mansion in the middle of nowhere, filled with large glass windows and intricate wooden details throughout. The direction is extremely well done, and there are fun little easter eggs here and there to look out for; one of the kid’s cell phones has Casey Becker’s ringtone (Drew Barrymore in Scream), there’s a scary story told by one of the main characters that’s also told in the slasher episode of Dawson’s Creek, and the murderous parents names are Pamela and Jason, obvious nods to Friday the 13th. I’m sure there are more that I didn’t catch upon my first viewing, but I’ll be looking for them the second time around.
Have you seen Sick? Did you like it, did you hate it? Do you agree with me, or are you wrong? Let me know in the comments.
