Where I Watched It: peacock

English Audio Description?: Yes

i didn’t even look this up to see how Kevin Williamson is involved, because if he’s not, someone has figured out how to mimic his style perfectly. Not in a Scream 5 way, which was obviously not him, but right down to the clear homage this movie is paying to the slashers Williamson helped revive with his 90’s screenplays.

Sick takes place during covid, because if dying from covid wasn’t scary enough, now we have a killer. It follows the trope of having that first opening kill, just like Scream, and you aren’t sure why, or how it ties into the film. Once we get past our first splatter, we see two best friends headed out to the middle of nowhere at one of their father’s cabins. Middle of nowhere in a horror movie trope, check.

When we get there, it doesn’t take long before weird things start happening, and to applaud Sick, that is its strongest suit. It does not screw around. This has a very small cast, of really only seven or eight total people that could possibly count as “roles”. And because this house is in the middle of nowhere, once the killer arrives, he’s pretty brazen about it. No creeping around corners unnecessarily. You’re in the middle of nowhere and no one can hear you scream.

As silly as it might be to say a Covid horror movie works, this one does. The killer’s reasoning is stupid, and makes no sense, and hurt my head to even think about the logistical reasoning behind it, and just… everything about it. But, like I said, this is a fast paced film. It’s not even 90 minutes long. Get in, get out, and hope someone lives for the sequel.

Horror fans will probably lament that the film isn’t that gory, but aside from that opening and brief gutting at the top of Scream, no one else’s death was really gory from that film either. Yeah, people died, but, in slasher form. I think because of stuff like hereditary and Barbarian, we now expect the weirdest and worst from horror. but this is a throwback. Yes, people die, but no one is bisected, or has their internal organs juggled around.

The audio description here is important. Characters use their cellphones a lot. Texting is a big part of the film. Plus, the killer is wearing a mask, and doesn’t have dialogue until the need to reveal the nefarious reasoning, so you have to be able to track his whereabouts and the kills that happen.

Overall, it might not be the most memorable film in its genre, but Sick really does do mostly everything right.

Final Grade: B