Horror Movie Review: Sick (2022)

Sick is a 2022 American slasher film directed by John Hyams and written by Kevin Williamson and Katelyn Crabb. Sick premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2022, and was released on January 13, 2023, by Peacock.

In April 2020, the college student Tyler Murphy is stalked by an anonymous figure while shopping at a grocery store. When Tyler gets home, the masked intruder ambushes and kills him.

Parker Mason takes her best friend, Miri Woodlow, to her family’s lake house to quarantine. They arrive at the isolated lake house when Parker receives a cryptic text message. The girls head to a small dock to tan, and Parker receives another message, unsettling them both. Later that day, the two play a drinking game about Dr. Anthony Fauci while watching the news. An unknown visitor arrives in the driveway and is unresponsive when he knocks on the door. Parker heads outside with a knife, but sees no one. The figure enters through the backdoor, but it is revealed to be DJ, Parker’s fling who came to the lake house uninvited.

Now night, the three smoke marijuana and dance before deciding to go to sleep. After Miri leaves for her room, DJ confronts Parker about an Instagram post which showed her kissing someone named Benji at a party. DJ proposes that they be committed partners, but Parker disagrees and DJ agrees to leave the house in the morning. DJ then goes to his car, but a masked figure enters the house while his back is turned.

While everyone is sleeping, the intruder steals their phones. DJ and Parker wake up when loud music begins to play from downstairs.

Who is this mysterious killer and why are they targeting Parker? Watch and find out.

If you ever wanted to feel almost nostalgic for lockdown and early pandemic times then Sick will give that to you. It’s definitely strange to watch a film based off something you lived through not that long ago.

Although the characters are not particularly likeable, I feel that was supposed to be the case based on the killer’s eventually revealed motive. I enjoyed the mystery despite this and I was pretty satisfied with the conclusion.

The kills are pretty brutal and even though the gore was minimal, it looked great. If Sick gave you déjà vu and felt as if it had shades of Scream, that’s because it was written by Kevin Williamson. The opening felt very familiar in that respect along with the lack of everybody following basic horror movie rules and the eventual twist ending. This is a positive for me as Scream (and its subsequent franchise) is a favourite of mine.

Overall, Sick has its shortcomings and slow parts where I wasn’t sure anything beyond a basic slasher was going to occur. But it picked it up and concluded a well round slasher flick with a solid ending.  And remember kids, you never know how your actions will be impactful to others.