SICK (2022)

Studio:     Peacock/Blumhouse
Director:    John Hyams
Writer:     Kevin Williamson, Katelyn Crabb
Producer:  Kevin Williamson, Bill Block, Ben Fast
Stars:     Gideon Adlon, Beth Million, Dylan Sprayberry, Joel Courtney, Marc Menchaca, Jane Adams

Review Score:

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Summary:

To escape the pandemic, two best friends quarantine in a remote cabin where they are stalked by a mysterious murderer.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

April 3, 2020 – While shopping for pandemic supplies, Tyler Murphy is threatened via text by an unknown stalker. Disguised with a mask and a black hoodie, the stalker later breaks into Tyler’s home and slashes his throat.

Parker Mason brings her best friend Miri Woodlow with her to quarantine in a remote family cabin. Like Tyler, Parker also begins receiving disturbing texts from an unknown stalker.

Hoping to reconcile their broken relationship, Parker’s ex-boyfriend DJ Cole unexpectedly shows up at the cabin despite not being invited. After hanging out with the two young women for a little while, DJ confronts Parker over an Instagram post that shows her kissing a guy named Benji at a college party. Although Benji was only a brief encounter, Parker still dashes DJ’s hopes of getting back together.

The stalker sneaks into the cabin to begin terrorizing the trio by stealing their cellphones and playing loud music. When the stalker attacks Miri, DJ fights him off so Miri and Parker can escape outside. Following a violent fight, the stalker impales DJ by spearing him through his torso.

Parker and Miri try driving away, but become stuck when they blow a tire. The two of them race back to the cabin with the stalker in pursuit. After the stalker breaks in, Miri tries escaping through a second floor window, but she falls hard onto the outside ground below.

Parker seemingly beats the stalker to death during a physical fight in the kitchen. Parker is shocked to see a second stalker then enter the cabin. When that stalker pauses to mourn the death of the first man, Parker flees outside to check on Miri.

The second stalker chases Parker to a boat launch. Parker uses a raft and then swims to get away from the man. Parker makes it to her nearest neighbor Mr. Lyons’s house, but the stalker suddenly kills Mr. Lyons before resuming his pursuit of Parker.

Meanwhile, Miri crawls back to the cabin. Revealed to still be alive, the first stalker suddenly attacks Miri. Miri definitively kills the stalker by stabbing him in the throat.

The second stalker catches up to Parker on a remote road. Parker fights him off and flags down a passing vehicle. The driver, Pamela, insists that Parker put on a protective mask before entering her car because of the pandemic. Parker does as she asks, but falls unconscious due to chloroform on the mask. Pamela and the stalker then bring Parker back to the cabin where Miri sneakily contacts the police via laptop while hiding.

The stalker unmasks himself as Pamela’s husband Jason. The couple reveals that the dead stalker was their oldest son Tim. Taunting Parker with the Instagram video, Pamela then explains that their other son Benji died from COVID-19, and they blame Parker’s kiss for transmitting the virus to him. Pamela adds that they killed Tyler because he transmitted the virus to Parker, and they now want revenge against Parker as well as her friends who willingly broke quarantine.

A struggle ensues between all four people. Miri knocks Pamela to the ground. Miri and Parker then push Jason over an upstairs railing. Jason falls on deer antlers that impale his body.

Pamela pursues Parker and Miri to a shed outside. Parker eventually sets Pamela on fire. Pamela runs down the road and collapses. Parker and Miri walk to Pamela’s dead body as police cars pull up to the scene.

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Review:

Given its April 2020 setting, it stands to reason “Sick” was likely written around that same period, when its pandemic-centered plot probably seemed timely.  Now that a few years have passed, “Sick’s” take on that time merely seems trite at best, and ghoulishly histrionic at worst.

It still makes me chuckle with retroactive relief whenever movies present reminders of how weird the world was back then.  “Sick” opens on a scene of a young man in a grocery store, dutifully following an arrow taped to the floor while his covered face desperately scans empty shelves where paper products used to be.  A woman in the crowded checkout line sneezes, causing every nearby head to swivel swiftly so dozens of “How dare you!” daggers can invisibly stab her in the face.  Ah, those were the days, weren’t they?

That’s where any mild bemusement to be had with “Sick’s” quarantine-set scares both begins and ends.  Following this protracted prologue, which takes nearly ten minutes for someone who ultimately becomes a forgettable footnote to get harassed via text, have his home broken into, and finally killed by a stalker in a plain black hoodie, “Sick” moves on to its main duo, college co-ed Parker and her best gal pal Miri, and it’s only downhill from there.

Parker and Miri have decided to spend isolation at a remote woodland getaway.  Unbeknownst to them, two unwanted guests have invited themselves along.  The first is Parker’s ex-boyfriend DJ, who hopes to reconcile with Parker after getting to the bottom of an Instagram post featuring her touching tongues with some guy named Benji at a party.  The second is the same stalker who wasted ten of our minutes terrorizing that disposable dude who doesn’t matter much to the movie ever again.

Such little narrative meat exists on “Sick’s” bare bones, I imagine if the script were printed out on paper, there’d be so few pages that the short stack would seemingly disappear when turned sideways.  Aside from minimal moments of exposition to establish basic personalities and their relationships to one another, “Sick” puts nothing more on its plate than side serving after side serving of running, chasing, hiding, fighting, more running, more chasing, more hiding, and more fighting.  For a stomach hungering for suspense more substantial than just wondering what’s around a corner or when Killer A is going to catch up to Victim B, those empty calories will bloat a bored belly after only a few minutes, and “Sick” runs for 80.

Some tension can be found in the mystery behind who is wearing the hoodie and why he wants to kill Parker, except the number of characters can be counted on one hand, meaning there are literally no suspects or known motives that let you play armchair detective at home.  Then, when the story finally does put its hole cards face up on the table, we find out the secret stalker has a pretty dumb reason for wanting Parker dead, and has put together an even dumber, needlessly elaborate plan to murder her that only makes some modicum of sense if you turn off all rational logic in your brain.

We’ve seen thrillers hinge on wildly improbable possibilities before.  We’ve even seen them treat true life events with varying degrees of (dis)respect to get a laugh, make a point, or drape a backdrop for something as slight as a B-movie meant to entertain a rowdy midnight crowd.  But “Sick” is arguably irresponsible with how nonchalantly it treats COVID-19 as fright film fodder, not to mention how glibly it regards the close-to-home toll the virus took on turning loved ones into sad statistics.

Take potentially controversial COVID concerns off the table and “Sick” is still an ordinary slasher following a flat formula fit for the straight-to-streaming model.  Cabin in the woods.  Home invasion.  College kids quarrelling, partying, and posting on social media.  Nondescript killer wearing clothes bought from Target.  Then there are the aerial shots of cars driving, seemingly dead bad guys spontaneously springing up for one more sudden shock, and kills no more creative than repeated throat slashings to put vanilla frosting on a cliché-filled cake.

Some people give “Sick” credit for its nearly nonstop action, never mind how hollow that action is or how it recycles the same handful of people over and over again.  Others automatically applaud the film since it comes courtesy of “Scream” scribe Kevin Williamson, whose name still carries considerable clout among horror fans.  Strip out such superficialities, however, and all that remains are crumbs of slim storytelling, preposterous plotting, and purely pedestrian PG-level “thrills.”

Review Score: 40

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