The slasher genre is a low culture, but it has become a stupid cousin to what people refer to as an “elevated horror movies” since the mid-2000s and beyond. What people wanted were original, psychological and twisted films like The Descent and Hereditary, but not Children of the Corn: Genesis or Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort. It speaks volumes that some of the most acclaimed slasher films from the 2010s are essentially self-parodies (The Final Girls, Cabin in the Woods, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil).
However there seems to be something different about this year or two since there was an infusion of new blood into this genre. Movies such as X as well as Bodies Bodies Bodies can be have changed this kind of slashers without merely becoming parodies; they were fun, cruel and unique little films. Even in 2022, the new Scream movie became both box office hit and critical darling unexpectedly after Kevin Williamson made his first script over 25 years ago.
At that time Willianmson along with his assistant Katelyn Crabb had been working on another film that was then simply referred to as an ‘untitled pandemic thriller.’ And really, isn’t that what Sick is? Hyams does a pretty good job summarizing it when he calls it the Peacock original movie. In Sick we see a minimalist slasher thriller that peels off all unnecessary B.S. found in these genres for a thrilling experience while also giving us decent craftsmanship on top of shrewd Covid-era commentary.
Sick though is quite simple until you get to its closing section — it’s better if we don’t say anything else about it yet. This film happens in April 2020; by this time lockdowns/quarantines started hitting worldwide at a time when America faced serious shortage of toilet paper.Yes, Sick is one among many horror films that have taken advantage of the pandemic. It is hardly surprising that so many horror films were influenced by Covid considering that the virus could easily pass for a serial killer.
However, taking the traditional ‘cabin in the woods’ template common to a lot of horror flicks and making it into a more topical slasher on ‘quarantine in the woods’ is quite intelligent as this way Sick’s pandemic themes are less likely to be brushed off so fast. One time Parker and Miri went to his family cabin, which had remote controlled fireplaces and faced a lake. Before their college decided to send children home during the pandemic, these students had been quarantining themselves at home in some style. “I’ll 2020 this,” says Parker as she takes chips and alcohol out of a brown paper bag in her spacious wooden kitchen.
But other than that, she has also been receiving text messages from an unknown person who might even be stalking her if not her since it feels like what one would call technologically up-to-date nod toward cold open phone calls typical of Williamson’s Scream. This cozy quarantine might just have more people than initially thought.
All this is done very quickly with no waste of time. After a long, intense cold opening (a Williamson tradition), it only takes nine minutes to bring on the scares, suspense and atmospheric dread. Sick excels at inserting a subplot without ever losing focus from its main job – scaring the viewers. Prior to her quarantine, Parker had gone to a party and even ensured she broadcasted her flirtatious kiss with a stranger live on Instagram thereby igniting the jealousy flame of his ex-boyfriend DJ. That is basically what this movie gives its audience as far as exposition goes.
So it makes sense that the editing (primarily by Mark Dennison and Jeremy Lerman) is rapid and mercilessly coherent in driving us towards immediate horror. Hyams (Alone,Z Nation) knew exactly what kind of film he was making and used its lean script as an outline for building his directorial haunted house around it. Therefore, Sick is a short tight slasher film that can get in fast and knows when to leave out while still delivering effective frights.
Mostly Sick features Parker and Miri being hunted by the same killer from the beginning of the film, but it never gets boring. The script constantly finds new ways to create tension within the traditional slasher framework of teenagers being chased through woods or dark alleys by maniac killers with knives, which Hyams keeps visually inventive with each iteration’s new setting each time out.
Generally speaking, slasher films tend to have ensemble casts so there can be many different killings without any repeat ones.Sick is genuinely impressive considering it only has three major victims and not nearly as many deaths as most horror movies yet remains non-repetitive.
Of course, these characters are much less developed or interesting than those in Williamson’s Scream franchise or The Faculty or The Vampire Diaries; they pretty much have to be hollow so that the movie can go fast enough for such efficiency. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. How many times have horror movies tried to fill out a character (her father died young, her mother has cancer, he has a bullied brother, they have the will-they-or-won’t-they relationship, etc.), always at the expense of momentum and terror, and failed miserably? Mostly people can only recall what happened but never who it was that succumbed.
That being said, the actors are good at broadly representing youth without getting too bogged down in specifics. Gideon Adlon (Blockers; With Hunt; The Craft: Legacy) delivers an athletic and self-assured performance as Parker while young Bethlehem Million is underused but effective when she has to be pained and paranoid. The incomparable Jane Adams and Marc Menchaca steal every scene they’re in and prove they’re such skilled artists even if underrated ones.
However, Sick isn’t really about its characters per se with whom Williamson typically expresses one of his themes. He’s always had an interest in youth culture and individualism whether through sardonic self-awareness in Scream or The Faculty or sometimes embarrassingly earnest when he created Dawson’s Creek or Wasteland or The Secret Circle. In Sick for example, Williamson with the help of Crabb look into how these experiences of youthfulness and individuality often come into conflict with something as overwhelming as Covid-19 pandemic.
Sick is an ultimate thrill-packed and frightful vehicle, but it also explores some very important questions being raised in the post-pandemic world. Whether or not Wuhan, China or ‘patient zero’ matters, does blame? What separates individual from collective responsibility? As Covid worsened, many people were eager to take a risk with their own health but what about caring for others during crisis? When your choices of not wearing masks, isolating or testing become fatal for others yet you are ok with that how guilty are you for their lives?
Though those may sound like deep themes, Sick doesn’t really beat us over the head with them. Instead of driving home these ideas and questions in action more than words, the film implies them while letting them hang in a way that makes it a highly entertaining short fast-paced slasher film. Lean meat rare just like rare meat cooked rare with no fat that is always healthy.
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