Below is an advanced review of Beyond Fest. Sick no release date yet.
It’s no shock that a slasher film co-written by Kevin Williamson is going as hard as Sick. Williamson and Katelyn Crabb infect Williamson’s draft of Scream with “Covid-19 Horror,” fueling terror while under quarantine. It’s sickeningly breakneck, effortlessly wicked and leaves you breathless – but that’s all before its COVID-19 horror twist hits. Director John Hyams is precise and expert when riffing on Scream’s Casey Becker script’s opening death or hyping intensity during pulsating chase sequences. Williamson and Crabb write knife-to-the-throat tension in the simplest formula The Scream meets on Friday the 13th and meets COVID-19 lockdown protocols – then the complications of coronavirus storytelling take an awkward turn.
The timeline of the pandemic places Sick around April 2020, when Americans were still figuring out how to protect themselves from the invisible droplets of COVID-19. College students Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million) escape from their dirty petri-dish dorms to a formerly idyllic lakeside mega-shack, with no neighbors for miles. Parker is a more free-spirited person who complains about wearing his plain white and blue surgical mask when symptoms aren’t showing, while Miri always dons her much thicker custom pastel mask because she has a risky father she’s afraid of infecting. Parker vows to Miri that they will spend the isolation partying as their “Drink every time Fauci is mentioned on TV” rule – until not only Parker’s friend DJ (Dylan Sprayberry) attacks their balloon, but also an anonymous, fully clothed in black killer.
