SICK (2023) Dir. John Hyams

I’ve had mixed (to say the least) feelings about slasher films in the past. Since Scream (1996) so brilliantly deconstructed the genre, I’ve had a hard time looking beyond the clichés it parodied so well. And being generous, I don’t think there’s been much since which has really got my blood pumping.

Cabin in the Woods was great but also essentially part of the same meta-satire cloth that Scream was cut from. But with far too many reboots and remakes, to me it feels a tired genre with very few highlights in the last decade.

And it’s not that I don’t like a violent flick. The Guest, Hush, Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge and Green Room were fantastic films. But pure slashers (especially of the US-teen variety) and familiar franchise fare like the recent Halloween retread have left me colder than a body in a morgue.

But there is light, and blood, at the end of this tunnel with Sick. Funnily enough, it is co-written by Kevin Williamson, the writer of Scream. Set in 2020 at the height of the global pandemic, we open the film with a young man who enters a supermarket before receiving ominous texts to his mobile phone.

The mask mandate is a clever conceit with regards to the usual “faceless/masked” killer trope but before you can say “this has a phone call opening like Scream” the boy is dispatched by a hooded assailant.

The bloody opening had me hooked as although it felt familiar, the grappling of the young man and his killer is edited in a flurry of kinetic energy with a real physicality to it as they messily fight around an apartment. Hyams' previous film was the horror Alone, but before that he cut his teeth on Universal Soldier films which must have honed his impressive fight choreography credentials.

After this, we then follow a young girl Parker (Gideon Adlon) who heads to a lake house with her friend Miri (Bethlehem Million) and the two chat about life and relationships before DJ, a man who Parker had a brief fling with, strangely shows up to disrupt their tranquil break.

The middle of the film slows a bit with drawn-out scene-setting as it puts the narrative pieces in place. The build up works well though as the film soon sees a hooded stranger arrive and steal the girls' mobile phones whilst they’re asleep and then all hell breaks loose.

The movie barely stops from this point but a big plus point for me was the attempt at some reality and including characters that weren’t utter morons. Or make moronic decisions. From attempting to get weapons to trying to swim, drive away or planning to get a phone back, the female leads attempt undertake sensible decisions, at the right time too, which is always a good thing in my book and so lacking in most horrors.

Inventive but visceral attacks culminate in a well-orchestrated sequence set on a part of a floating pier and a mid film twist was pleasantly surprising - although could have lingered a bit more to give brief respite from the chaos.

But it again defies expectations by having scares which aren’t clearly signposted by sounds or the score, and at 85 minutes, it’s a brief but unrelenting strike on the senses.

The film plays around with the concerns of Covid - like lockdowns, masks, keeping your distance (or not) and how different people’s viewpoints intersected and clashed on both the science and guidance at the time.

And as the fury increases and the fight for survival becomes more intense, Sick throws in even more surprises before it ends with each one delivering a satisfying moment or carefully thought-out plot point with aplomb.

As it wraps up, Sick does have some of those clichés I worry so much about but also breathes (mask-covered) fresh life into standard slasher elements. My only worry now is that it will spawn into a 6-part franchise of unsatisfying sequels with nothing more to say. Dear filmmakers, please don’t. One and done is fine.

I am as surprised as anyone, especially with my indisposition to similar recent fare, that a genre which has been infected with so little flavour has brought us a film that is a socially distanced scream-fest. And so Sick impressively injects a big dose of (un)vaccinated violence and pin-sharp politics without sacrificing any entertainment.

★★★½

3.5/5

Michael Sales