Image courtesy of IMDb
Hello, everyone.
For this review, we’re taking a look at a horror movie about an actual horrific event. For those who have been following my blog long enough, you would know that this event had a pretty significant impact on me (and not in a good way, to put it lightly).
In fact, it impacted me so much (particularly on here, because it caused so much to be delayed left and right) that while I initially intended to track it and keep everyone up to date as new developments came in, I ended up falling too far behind doing it.
It ultimately proved completely pointless, as most if not all of what I would cover eventually did end up coming out.
Even so, this has been a long time coming for me, as I finally get some payback.
Folks, even if you hated having to get them (I did, too, don’t get me wrong), it’s time to bust out your face masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, or what have you, as we take a look at a horror comedy that deserves more attention, since it didn’t go to theaters, but rather straight to Peacock. However, it has since been released on Digital and on physical media, including 4K, and that is Sick.
Before I get started, I have to mention something here that’s a pet peeve of mine, and this happens a lot.
If you look this movie up (on Wikipedia, IMDb, or anything like that), it says it’s a 2022 movie*. Just because it premiered at a film festival in 2022, that means it is considered to have been released that year. Not for me, it isn’t.
My rule is if it gets a general release in a different year compared to a festival release, I go by the former. Thus, I consider this a 2023 movie, because that’s when everyone else would be able to see it, whether it goes to theaters or not.
There is only one exception I make to this: If both releases happen in the same year, then it counts.
For anyone who would be confused by the differing dates, I wanted to take a moment to get that out of the way.
Having done that, let’s continue.
Set during the beginning of the worldwide Hell known as COVID (particularly April 2020), the story follows two best friends, Parker and Miri, as they decide to go to a lake house owned by Parker’s family for quarantine. Unfortunately, Parker begins receiving mysterious texts from an unknown number, which ends up becoming the least of their problems.
What Worked: For a movie set during COVID, it benefits from having a small cast, even if there aren’t really any big names in it.
However, there are some people I did recognize, but I’ll get to a couple of them in a moment.
First, our main character is played by Gideon Adlon, who more recently was in Terminator Zero last year, where she voiced the main character’s daughter. As great as she was in that, I may have liked her even more in this**.
Parker is very sympathetic, as is Miri, played by Beth Million. Their friendship feels authentic, and they have some good banter between them. In fact, Miri had some of the funnier lines. I’ll get to the script momentarily.
There are two other names I can really go into here, the first of which being Dylan Sprayberry (who played the younger Clark Kent in Man of Steel) as a friend of theirs, DJ, who decides to quarantine with them. He’s really good for the time he’s in it.
The second it took me a bit to recognize, and that is Joel Courtney from Super 8. Even though he’s basically a cameo, his character does end up having greater significance to the main plot.
I considered mentioning two additional names, but I decided against it, because it would come dangerously close to spoilers. I can say this: One of them is mainly known for independent work, and the other you may recognize among the supporting cast of Companion, which is one of my favorite movies of the year.
As mentioned earlier, I didn’t have a lot to go by on this one. However, the subject of my next review (which is currently my favorite of the year) will more than make up for that.
Now for the technical aspects.
The biggest name in that regard I would argue is Kevin Williamson, best known as one of the driving forces behind the Scream franchise (to the point where he’s directing and cowriting the next one).
This very much has his stamp on it, because it feels like a Scream movie at times, to the point where at its core, it’s a horror mystery.
The script itself is very clever with how it takes stabs (no pun intended) at COVID and all the things that come with it, from quarantine to the home tests, right down to even the toilet paper hysteria that kicked everything off. I was surprised they even addressed that.
It also has characters making smart decisions. In fact, one of which is actually a character addressing a stupid decision that another just made, which I thought was hilarious.
It’s not entirely on point, but I’ll get to that later. For now, I’ll say that for me, at least, it did stick the landing in terms of the reveal because it ultimately makes sense.
Not only that, it also doesn’t make characters we’ve come to know and love look like complete idiots, but I digress.
They did express how I felt at one point near the end of the movie, though, so there is that (thank you, Kevin; it’s getting bonus points from me just for that).
As a result, you can relate to the characters here because they had to deal with as much pain as everyone else.
The other somewhat recognizable name behind the camera is John Hyams. That’s mainly because he’s the son of director Peter Hyams, who was particularly big in the 90s, ranging from his collaborations with Jean-Claude Van Damme such as Timecop and Sudden Death to his horror films The Relic and End of Days***. I mention some of his work for one particular reason, and it does somewhat carry over to John’s work on this.
In terms of the direction here, though, it is pretty well done. The same goes for the cinematography, for the most part.
What Didn’t Work: There are a couple times where the cinematography is too dark. It felt like John was following in Peter’s footsteps and shooting his own movie. I was surprised to discover that this wasn’t the case, so it’s not as distracting as when his father would do it… and he had a habit of doing that.
It’s not Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem-levels bad, is what I’m saying. By comparison alone, it’s not even close.
This might be a nitpick compared to my biggest issue, but the score here is good, but not that memorable.
My biggest issue is that while the reveal, which I of course will not spoil, was effective, it’s not the most brilliant one Kevin’s done in his scripts (it’s no Scream 2), but I will say that it’s way better than the main one in Scream 4.
However, that’s not his fault. You should always blame Harvey Weinstein for that, even if it wasn’t as severe as an occasion involving Bob, but both are different stories.
One thing I do have an issue with regarding that, though, is a certain aspect of those characters that is not subtle at all, especially if you love horror movies.
Let’s just say it’s about as subtle as playing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” in the opening premonition of a Final Destination movie… oh wait, they did do that.
Overall: While not quite as good as some of Kevin Williamson’s other work, Sick is still a really good movie.
For a movie that takes a jab at COVID (which I had been waiting for ever since Day One, really) and does it in entertaining ways, this movie really surprises me even now that someone managed to pull it off.
They did it better than even I could’ve.
Even though this wasn’t an issue for me, I should forewarn you, though, before I close this out:
If anyone out there is considering watching this based on my recommendation, if you think you’ll feel uncomfortable from being reminded of what you may have gone through during this time, even with that, it might not be the best idea unless/until you think you can handle it.
For everyone else, especially if you felt the same way I did during the whole thing, this’ll be a delight for you. They were able to look back on it and laugh, and hopefully, so can you.
Next time, we go from a horror movie parodying newer tropes to a new take on established ones.
*Actually, YouTube does have it right.
**Even in saying that, yes, I am still a big Terminator fan.
***AKA the one where Arnold fights the Devil. I don’t need to say anything else.