‘This isn’t a vacation, it’s a quarantine…’
Screenwriter Kevin Williamson transformed the horror genre forever when writing Scream, The Faculty and I Know What You Did Last Summer at the tail end of the ’90s. Since then, however, barring a couple of false starts (Teaching Mrs Tingle, anyone? Didn’t think so), Williamson has focused on his television projects (namely The Vampire Diaries) and has never really returned to out-and-out horror until this movie. And what a comeback it is…
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Parker Mason (Gideon Adlon) and Miri Woodlow (Beth Million) decide to wait out quarantine together in a secluded cabin in the woods. It soon becomes clear that they aren’t as isolated as they first thought.
The pandemic has already produced one horror classic in the shape of 2020’s instant hit Host. Whilst Sick doesn’t quite scale those heights, it serves as a timely reminder of how good Williamson can be when firing on all cylinders (kudos also to co-writer Katelyn Cobb). Director John Hyams (son of Peter) does a fantastic job in bringing the script to life using his camera as another character that constantly stalks Adlon and Million throughout the skinny 83-minute run time – the kind of film length that I’m sure most people can get on board with.
If there is a message here, it is that fanaticism of any kind is bad, but also that irresponsibility can lead to disaster. Williamson and Cobb don’t pick sides, instead wisely choosing to expose the hysterical hypocrisy that defined both sides of the Covid debate. It’s a canny move and the resulting movie never feels preachy or didactic.
I genuinely felt like I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing any kind of pop culture set in the hinterland of the pandemic, but Sick does a great job of breathing new life into an era that all of us would rather leave behind.