- Starring
- Gideon Adlon, Bethlehem Million, Jane Adams
- Writers
- Katelyn Crabb, Kevin Williamson
- Director
- John Hyams
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 83 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Sick is very much a work of its writer Kevin Williamson. The film opens up with a scene that is very reminiscent of one from a Scream flick but this one felt more like a Scream DLC: COVID edition. That COVID edition part is, well, the true descriptor as it is very much a COVID film. The COVID of it all is massive, as the film’s main struggle and purpose is centered around it. Sick takes place in the early weeks of the pandemic’s onset with a pair of girls named Parker (Adlon) and Miri (Million) who head to a getaway cottage for some luxurious quarantining. Soon enough they are forced to thwart off a home invasion, and things get ugly real fast. One area in which this film excels is its action and gore. Director John Hyams has a vision for how he wants the violence to play out, and it is undeniably fun to bear witness to. The film is also set up in a way that leads to some pretty effective jump scare tactics that are genuinely effective.
That being said, the COVID aspect of Sick was kind of off putting but not necessarily for the joking about COVID. Those jokes just don’t land for the most part. Meanwhile, though the performances are all serviceable, they do not quite hit the level of absurdity needed to really reach the heights of the ridiculousness of the premise. To have a film set around COVID essentially locks it into the current zeitgeist of our moment in time. It’s a risk, and while the film is enjoyable enough on its slasher elements, it falls short in its vision. Clocking in at a swift 83 minutes definitely helps as it gets right to the point and doesn’t waste time. This is definitely a benefit to the Sick, which essentially never felt like it was dragging its feet to get to the next struggle. Most horror films subscribe to that ninety-minute mark, and it usually is for the best.
In the end, Sick is a film that is bogged down by its own premise. Aside from that however, it is an easy-breezy sub-90-minute slasher film featuring some solid performances and really effective gore and carnage.
*still courtesy of TIFF
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