Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sick’ on Peacock, A Slasher Film for the COVID Era That’s Also Not Worth the Risk

If you didn’t feel like living through a global pandemic in 2020 was scary enough for you, Peacock has you covered with the new horror film Sick. It turns three years ago into a period piece: the mask mandates, the social distancing, the general terror that felt both abstract and acute. But is it worth a trip back to that nightmarish period for a new set of scares?

SICK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The film begins with what felt like the scariest thing of all time: getting groceries on April 3, 2020, during the height of the pandemic. But something much more tangible than a swirling airborne virus emerges as a threat for one unlucky shopper, who finds himself stalked via phone in the store and slashed in his home. Sick then switches gears and introduces us to Parker (Gideon Adlon) and her health-conscious pal Miri (Bethlehem Million) on their way to an isolated lake getaway where a similar cyber-stalker emerges. What at first seems like an invader turns out to be an unexpected friend DJ (Dylan Sprayberry) crashing the house. He’s an on-again, off-again flame for Parker who brings high drama along with his quest for them to get back together.

A threat more immediately present than swirling COVID – a masked presence who’s dressed as such to harm, not help, others – emerges at the lake house. This development plunges Sick into familiar teen slasher territory, where it lingers for a good bit putting its characters into peril. But while their targeting might seem random or indiscriminate, their continued evasion of death allows them to peel away the mystery of who wants them dead – and why.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Think something like The Strangers with a group of people being stalked by mysterious invaders as they try to flee the stresses of everyday life.

Performance Worth Watching: To say anything about the nature of her character is to spoil the movie itself, but Jane Adams – a character actress who might be familiar from work that spans Father of the Bride Part II to TV’s Hacks – comes in and steals the show in the third act. She’s a little chilling, a little comedic … the balance the film is trying to strike.

Memorable Dialogue: As Miri surveys the isolated but palatial lake house, she expresses incredulity. She’s greeted with the response from Parker, “I told you, I know how to 2020.” Surprising that it took until now for someone to turn the year from hell into a verb!

Sex and Skin: Nothing of the sort to be found in Sick. Probably the correct story move, given all the increased sensitivities around bodily contact when the film takes place!

Our Take: Screenwriter Kevin Williamson all but rewrote the rulebook for contemporary horror with his Scream franchise, so he does not lack in skill or insight. The level of expectation for a film that bears his writing credit is all that much higher, which is part of why Sick feels so disappointing. The film does nothing to elevate a basic formulaic storyline, and the novelty factor of a COVID-19 horror film falls flat. It aims for a striking metaphor about transmissibility and responsibility during the early days of the pandemic when young people came under fire for their cavalier attitudes toward the virus, but in 2023, these tensions feel like something that’s been litigated and settled for a long time.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Sick arrives too late with its commentary on social responsibility in the pandemic era to land with any kind of real scares. Don’t fall for the yassification of a standard-issue slasher flick. The setting might seem new and interesting, but little else in the film is.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, Little White Lies and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.