Mark Reviews Movies: SICK

Sick, Peacock

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 12, 2023

Set near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in United States, Sick almost doesn't need that real-world event as a point of intrigue. The film, directed by John Hyams, is simply a smartly crafted and tension-filled thriller about a masked killer terrorizing people in their homes for mysterious reasons. One certainly understands why screenwriters Kevin Williamson and Katelyn Crabb incorporate the pandemic and government stay-at-home orders within the narrative. Without them, the plot itself is wholly routine and familiar, but who cares about that when the film's suspense and thrills are as successful as they are here?

The background does serve as at least some justification for certain things within the story. Take the extended prologue, which follows a young man (played by Joel Courtney) on a grocery shopping trip amidst empty aisles, socially-distanced customers, and various types of masks covering mostly unseen faces. It became such a common site, yet as is the case with horror stories that really touch some kind of nerve, the filmmakers find something sinister beneath the ordinary.

In this case, the long line at the checkout counter, with people spaced six feet apart, becomes a cover of sorts for someone sending anonymous text messages to the man's phone. After all, just about anyone in line behind him could have taken the photo of his back that someone sends him. Those masks become literal covers, too. A masked stranger in a store under normal circumstances would have seemed overly suspicious, but within this context, nobody looks suspicious—until the young man realizes that one of these people most certainly is worthy of plenty of suspicion.

The rest of the sequence is, of course, exactly what one would expect it to be. The young man returns home to his apartment, discovers that a side door to the space has been open, and quickly realizes that something is wrong in this place that should be safe. No one needs to be told that this character isn't long for the world or the narrative here, but there's real skill in the way Hyams treats the entire scene, which begins with the guy's return and follows him to and through his apartment at various levels of urgency and terror, as a real or convincingly fake one-take. The result is frightening in its immediacy, because the camera doesn't give this brief protagonist any room to breathe, and its intensity, because Hyams doesn't allow us the minor pause in rhythm that could come from even a single edit.

After inevitable but still-effective conclusion of the prologue, the story shifts perspective and resets for a new build-up to an even longer setpiece of tension and action. The bulk of the story follows friends Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million), college students who have decided to shelter-in-place at the latter's family cabin near a lake and in the middle of a forest. It's the perfect place to avoid any kind of contact with other people—unless a masked killer has targeted one of the young women, both of them, or the cabin and its occupants for murder.

Obviously, a masked killer has, so the rest of the meager plot would be pointless to explain. The only somewhat notable development, before that person wearing a mask and wielding a knife enters the house, is the surprise arrival of DJ (Dylan Sprayberry), a guy Parker briefly dated who expected more out of their relationship than Parker wants. Is he a suspect or also a potential victim, and do such questions even matter to the filmmakers?

The answer is that they don't. The whole point, as soon as the minimal but efficient character-building and location-establishment is complete, is to set that masked threat against Parker, Miri, and DJ. The three are not, thankfully, entirely helpless against or rendered incompetent by the presence of someone chasing them with a knife.

That helps solidify our connection to the dread and fear of this story, which amounts to a lengthy game of cat-and-mouse within, on top of, and around the large, spacious cabin. Williamson and Crabb's screenplay pulls off a couple of tricks, some of them to do with technology (such as stereo system being used a distraction/lure, the killer swiping the targets' phones while they sleep, and one character noticing that someone is using the internet at particular moment) and most of them to do with nature, number, and motive of the threat at hand. Nothing here sticks out as particularly or egregiously illogical (Some of it, such as the subtle way Miri is established as a pre-med student and how that comes into play, is pretty clever), and the hiding, seeking, and chasing follows from one choice to the next.

The film's success mainly stems from Hyams' control of the camera, staging, and perspective of this game. The prologue prepares us for how well the director handles those first two elements, but of note in this case is the third. Hyams doesn't cheat in terms of a killer popping out of nowhere, because he ensures that we always know where the threat is at any given moment, either because of a shadowy figure lurking in the background or because the camera directly follows the masked killer in the process of the hunt (When the film does "cheat," it's for a good, semi-surprising reason). It's a simple thing, but such constant knowledge elevates the suspense and fear of an exercise that is, at its core, pretty routine.

That's not to condemn Sick, of course (although the climax, which tries to make the story directly about the pandemic and the response to it, is an underwhelming payoff). The story here might be routine, but the filmmaking, which is what really matters, isn't.

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