During the pandemic, two young women went to a lake house to quarantine, only to realise that they were not alone.
Flawed but suspenseful. It’s been three years since the pandemic’s nightmare started, and films like Sick already feel something between outdated and voyeuristically familiar. Let me explain…
Not many of us or people we know have been assaulted by serial killers who asked if you wanna party or what your favourite film is right before they attempted to kill you. Having gone to the supermarket, though, to get toilet paper and find nada has happened to all of us, even those who caused the problem. So, once we have identified ourselves with that problematic situation (the guy at the supermarket), it feels weird to watch a film about it. It’s like watching people getting assaulted under similar conditions that we have experienced, and that adds a bizarre pseudo-realism to it. Makes sense? Maybe it’s me. Anyway, I move on…
Writers Kevin Williamson and Catelyn Crabb and director John Hyams pace well this house-invasion horror that goes over the top about the aforementioned situation that we’ve all been through, one way or another. I mean, way over the top. Hyams did the amazing Alone (2020) with the also impressive Marc Menchaca, and while Sick is not Alone, it’s still impressive. The film’s best parts are the tracking shots and the clear-cut John Wick-like (2014) action. Hyams knows what to frame and what to leave outside the frame. These on-screen and off-screen choices build up immensely the suspense and glue you to your seats. Furthermore, Gideon Adlon (Parker) and Bethlehem Million (Miri) do a spot-on job as victims of this invasion.
Ultimately, just like Scream (1996) – also written by Williamson – Sick‘s motives are purposefully kind of satyric or comedic, expressing the paranoia of what we went through not so long ago (see the lack of toilet paper above) that will go down in history as one of the most head-scratching buffooneries of mankind.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
