OUT NOW: Sick (John Hyams, 2022)

As the COVID pandemic begins in early 2020, two college students, Parker (Gideon Adlon) and her best friend Miri (Bethlehem Million), decide to isolate themselves together at Parker’s family holiday home.

As they settle in for the night, Parker and Miri slowly realise that they are not alone…

The new film from Scream writer Kevin Williamson, Sick was released on the streaming service Peacock on Friday, with little promotion. I heard about it through some random Twitter account.  

A pity, because Sick is a terrific thriller.

Set in one location with a small cast, Sick is a slasher stripped down to its essentials. 

It may not have the same meta-textual punch as Williamson’s most famous work, but that is irrelevant. This is a group of filmmakers operating at the top of their game.

Director John Hyams (Universal Soldiers: Regeneration & Day of Reckoning, Alone) makes playful use of a moving camera and sense of screen space. Once the home invasion begins, Hyams gives the film the same sense of forward motion and brute force as his action movies.

There is something terrifying about how deliberate his pacing is, and how clearly he frames the action. While it is not that gore-y, tt never feels like the violence is being soft-pedalled.

As the two leads, Gideon Adlon and Bethlehem Million are solid. This movie is more of a suspense vehicle than a character piece - their characters are familiar Williamson archetypes, smart and resourceful, and the actresses are both excellent. However the roles are (intentionally) a bit slim.

Despite the fact that a lot of the movie’s middle section is the same characters running around the same house, it never gets monotonous. 

The final reveal is a darkly comic twist on a now-familiar refrain from the pandemic era, heightened to a ridiculous extreme. 

Sick is not a comedy as such - although I think watching it on a computer rather than the big screen with an audience might have blunted its impact.

As a straight slasher, Sick is viscerally effective. The kills are scrappy and messy. As with the portrayal of Ghostface, the killer in Sick is not some overpowering super being, but flesh-and-blood. Part of the suspense comes from how tough it is to kill a human being.

I am holding back on certain aspects of the plot - this is movie that deserves to be seen - but while the story does not include any twists, there is something satisfying about its brute economy.