Movie Details
Sick (2022)
Director:John Hyams
Cast-Gideon Adlon: Plays Parker
Bethlehem Million: Plays Miri
Dylan Sprayberry: Plays DJ, Parker’s love interest
Marc Menchaca: Plays Jason
Jane Adams: Plays Pamela
Joel Courtney: Plays a role
Movie type- Horror/Crime
Release date- 2022
IMDB Rating-6
Languages- English and Portuguese
Duration-1 Hour 23 Minutes
Trailer
Synopsis
When you’re thirty-one, you rewrite the rules of an entire genre, it’s kind of dumb. Kevin Williamson knows this all too well. When he wrote Scream, he had all of Hollywood at his feet, and probably other similarly great things were expected of him, but they didn’t quite come. Not that he was inept, he just unfortunately set the bar so high that he practically couldn’t jump over it. However, it is good that he keeps trying, although often on TV and not always with success. His new film Sick hid under the radar, if only because it was a very small film, which also avoided cinemas. But while it’s far from a flawless spectacle, and certainly not the next genre revolution, Williamson shows here that he still has ideas that make him worth watching.
All of America is in quarantine due to the pandemic, and friends Parker and Miri decide to spend it at the family’s summer house, which belongs to the father of one of them. They are here alone and can enjoy themselves by the lake away from all the covid dangers. But they are not really alone here. Their peace and well-being will be disturbed by a masked killer who intends to make their quarantine properly and, if possible, fatally uncomfortable…
The plot is not exactly revealing at first glance, and after a few minutes Sick begins to profile itself as a combination of home invasion and slasher. Two heroines, a magor with a knife, help nowhere and rising tension… but that’s not quite it. Although Williamson bet on a proven foundation, like in Vřískot, he is also trying some new things here. I’m not going to spoil Sick for you, but let’s say that the pandemic situation is handled quite cleverly here, but the work with the heroines themselves is much more interesting. Although Williamson does not let them turn horror clichés upside down, he approached them as normal, believable and above all intelligent characters. Which means there’s no running for the stairs during a threat, Parker and Miri don’t split up at the first opportunity, and when the killer is neutralized, they don’t go into the next room only to find moments later
It’s nice to watch characters who aren’t stupid and know they’re fighting for their lives. They can engage their brains and surprise the killer, either with what they come up with or how determined they are to fight. At the same time, it is evident from the beginning that they are not opposed by an unstoppable massacr, but by a person who also makes mistakes and can be defeated. While he is primarily interested in eliminating the girls and not necessarily scaring them (and the audience) by trying to scare the crap out of them at all costs.
Director John Hyams, who made, among other things, at least the interesting Universal Soldier four, is able to show unexpectedly good action scenes with a small budget and a modest set, and all encounters with the killer are exciting, rough and quite trodden. The fact that the number of corpses is not played here, and the secondary characters do not have to be mowed down like on a treadmill and it is mainly about two heroines, the fight with the killer becomes a fight for life, where every mistake hurts and means a problem, but for both sides. And in the end, it all makes a lot more sense than another Friday the 13th episode.
Although it is directly or indirectly referred to here a few times, Sick is ultimately closer to a horror thriller than a regular horror film in terms of its atmosphere and pace. The originality is not exaggerated here, and the coziness sometimes borders on a little cheapness, but Williamson simply managed to write heroines for whom you wish for a happy ending, because they are not chickens just waiting to be slaughtered. And a killer who approaches his work pragmatically. And he’s not afraid to pick up a loaded shotgun when he’s rolling at his feet. In addition, thanks to the short footage, it goes by quickly, and even if the atmosphere might deserve Hyams and Williamson to spend a little more on building the tension in the first third, in the end it turns out to be a nice movie with some smart ideas, a few impressive scenes and fun fatalities.
Play the trailer-Williamson’s novelty will certainly not bring a new revolution, and apparently no one on the set tried to do something like that. But an above-average genre film that isn’t satisfied with doing everything according to the horror mold is not enough either. I’m actually quite happy with this little inconspicuous image. And I hope that Williamson, for whom this is the first film script in seventeen years, will not be hanging around on TV for years.
Watch For Free On Filmy4Wap