[REVIEW] Kevin Williamson’s Latest is Sick
When I heard there was a new Kevin Williamson penned slasher coming out, I didn’t need to know anything else to know that I wanted to watch it. “The writer behind my favorite slasher franchise is doing a new movie? I’m ready. Let’s go.” Now, while there is a discussion to be had about making a movie about the covid pandemic three years into it and we are still going through it, this is just going to be a review of said movie.
With the perfect tagline “If you have to scream, cover your mouth”, Sick was directed by John Hyams (Chucky series, Z Nation) and written by Williamson (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) and Katelynn Crabb. The runtime of 83 minutes is bound to make Sick more inviting to those questioning whether or not to watch it. The shorter runtime gives it the feel of slasher movies during the boom in the 1980s, down to a few memorable gnarly kills and a killer chase scene that covers land and water.
The film opens with a caption dated “April 3, 2020”. It’s a timestamp where we all remember just about where we were, what we were doing, and what we started doing. Some of us lost our jobs. Some people lost loved ones. The opening scenes of this movie play out like watching our newly formed core memories on screen. We see a long line at a grocery store where everyone is spaced six feet apart, following taped arrows on the floors, wearing masks, surrounded by empty shelves, and everyone turning to spot where the sound of a cough is coming from. The few characters that we are introduced to are characters that feel like people we know, either personally or people we’ve seen on social media. There’s those who are taking the pandemic seriously and those who are blissfully ignorant, and our two main characters are one of each.
The film follows Parker (Gideon Aldon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million), two people who are some of the privileged ones who are able to leave their college campus as it shuts down and go to an isolated and gorgeous lake house owned by Parker’s family. Miri is the one who is taking the early days of the pandemic seriously, calling out Parker while she’s not wearing her mask while loading up the car and mentioning her immunocompromised dad. Meanwhile, Parker is throwing up the peace sign and taking selfies as they’re leaving to isolate themselves to post on her social media pages.
Unlike other slashers, particularly the Scream movies, after the opening kill the audience is not introduced to a large cast of characters so it eliminates a lot of the “whodunnit?” vibes and leaves you with more of a “who the heck is this?” Keeping true to Williamson fashion, when the killer is revealed it becomes a textbook example of a modern homage to a classic slasher that’s bound to give horror fans a fun “aha” moment. *insert that snapping and pointing gif of Leo DiCaprio here*. My biggest hiccup with this is seeing people adding Parker to their “Final Girl” lists when she’s really not? There is the arc that connects Parker to the killer, but everything feels more like they’re “Survivor Girls” rather than “Final Girls”. And, if anything, I would have rather seen Miri being more prominent in that role potentially.
At the time I’m typing this, Sick has a critics’ score of 87% making it “Certified Fresh” and an audience score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I find myself right about in the middle of that. It was worth the watch but if it’s not something you want to watch given that it’s based around the pandemic then you should feel no need or pressure to watch it; you wouldn’t be missing out on the best slasher in recent memory. It is definitely the most timely slasher we’ve seen in a minute.
If you do want to watch it, you can currently watch Sick streaming on Peacock.