Made in the slasher sub-genre, which became especially popular after the release of films from the Scream franchise, this horror film takes viewers back to the events of the era of unprecedented restrictive measures due to COVID. The most attractive thing is that in “Sick” skillfully manages to connect the satire of the pandemic with the bloody history inherent in every horror film in an unconventional way.
It’s also strange that, while everyone is affected by the global pandemic, surprisingly few major films have been made around the virus. Perhaps this is because this event was too traumatic to be revisited so soon in the entertainment and film industries. As a result, while a few big-budget films have included the pandemic in their storylines, Hollywood does not seem eager to remind viewers of a global catastrophe.
However, Sick is not only set during a pandemic, but also unabashedly centers its story around COVID-19 itself, even rather, the witty and violent scenario is centered around the reactions of diverse people to it. As the characters struggle to survive in an unusual fashion as the killer draws ever closer to them, their behavior leads to not one but two major twists in the film’s ending.
What is the movie “Sick” about?
The film features a scene in which a young man in his 20s, Tyler Murphy, is shopping at a grocery store in early April 2020, just as the pandemic was in full swing. While shopping, Tyler receives strange text messages that indicate that someone is watching him. He quickly walks home, where he is confronted by a masked killer with a knife. After an intense fight in which Tyler’s hand is cut, he apparently chases off the killer. As he cautiously walks out of his apartment to make sure the killer is out, the attacker slits his throat from behind.
The film then cuts to the next day on an empty college campus, where two college students, Parker and Miri, are loading their car with supplies to quarantine at the Parker family’s isolated cabin in the woods.
They arrive safe and sound, unpack and sanitize everything to make sure they are covid free. While relaxing by a lake, Parker and Miri talk about an Instagram video of her drunk and kissing a random acquaintance, Banji, at a party. Miri thinks she did this to make her boyfriend, DJ, jealous, though her friend denies this suggestion.
Their discussion is interrupted by an anonymous text message sent by Parker, which, like Tyler’s messages, indicates that someone is watching them. Excited, but not yet frightened, Parker blocks the number. Later that night, the girls’ quiet evening check is disrupted by someone knocking on the doorbell. After a tense minute, it turns out that this is the same DJ. He is here to confess his true feelings for Parker, which she quickly but calmly rejects.
As the girls go to bed upstairs, a masked figure (same as in the first scene) sneaks into the house while DJ packs his bags. Once inside, the masked figure managed to steal all communications.
The song from the basement wakes up the guy, who immediately guesses that someone is in the house and is going to kill Miri. He gives Parker his keys and tells her to jump out of the second floor window while he makes his way to Miri. In the end, DJ saves the girl, who quickly runs outside, which leads to a fight between the young man and the killer.
“Sick” hidden meaning
The storyline is then structured as one big chase scene with Parker, Miri and DJ fighting for their lives. The DJ dies first, sacrificing himself to give the girls a chance to escape. However, things do not go as planned, as his death is in vain and the girls remain in danger.
After DJ is stabbed to death while trying to apprehend the killer, Miri and Parker try to hide in the lake house. In the ensuing melee, Miri falls out of a window and breaks her leg, forcing her to play dead as the killer investigates outside. The ebb and flow seems to change after Parker manages to punch the killer in the face until the floor is covered in blood.
In a violent kitchen fight scene, Parker kills his assailant. However, the plot twist takes another twist and it turns out that more than one killer is involved in the carnage, as another masked intruder appears and cries at the discovery of the body.
Meanwhile, Parker escapes to the lake and uses a raft to cross to the other side while she is pursued by a second assassin. Stopping pretending to be dead, Miri uses a stool leg as a makeshift club. The first masked man unexpectedly arrives and goes after Miri, but the girl finishes Parker’s job by stabbing the killer in the neck. Parallel to this, on the other side of the shore, Parker breaks into a neighbor’s house to ask for help, and accidentally turns the man into a victim.
She then proceeds to run away from the second killer on a nearby road, hoping that the driver can drive past and save her. This actually happens when Pamela finds Parker and asks the girl to put on a face mask before boarding. Unfortunately, as the girl tortured by persecution soon finds out, this most protective agent that Pamela offered her was saturated with chloroform, and the woman who seemed to be trying so zealously to save her is actually also part of the killer club.
When Parker wakes up, the identity of her attackers is revealed. They turned out to be the parents of the very Banji – the boy with whom Parker was filmed by an unknown person on a video that the girls watched at the beginning of the film. His mother informs the stunned victim that her son died in agony a short time after the events, because he contracted the “covid” from this girl when the couple slept.
In addition, it turns out that Tyler, shown in the opening scene of the film, was killed by Bingy’s older brother, because, as the parents themselves again believe, it was the irresponsible Tyler who became the root cause of the infection, as he communicated with Parker, for which he was killed. Now it’s Parker’s turn to answer for the fact that she is the actual culprit in the death of both of their sons.
“Sick” ending explained
It is noteworthy that the parents ignore the fact that Banji was also present at other parties, and in general was a notorious womanizer and seduced girls when he wanted. As a result, Parker is resourceful in distracting the attention of the distraught killers, before a friend Miri, who arrived in secret, knocks out Banji’s mother. Well, then the duo kills the father as well, pushing him down the stairs and piercing him through with fragments of the railing.
Benji’s father notices that someone is using the house’s Wi-Fi and correctly deduces that it is the still-alive Miri, who has contacted the police via computer. As the man searches for her, Banji’s mother is about to kill Parker before Miri sneaks up behind her and pushes her out the window. The friends then both run up the stairs and set a trap for the elderly man, whose Achilles tendon is cut by Miri, and Parker blinds him with hairspray, causing him to fall from the second floor onto a pair of antlers in the lobby.
Both girls go to the open garage to start another car. As Parker gets gas to fill up the car, she is attacked by Bingy’s injured but still alive mother. In a fight, the mother is doused with gasoline. Miri sets fire to her mother’s pants, the flames from which quickly cover her entire body. She runs out into the road, but falls unconscious. While her body is on fire, two exhausted girls come out onto the road, and the belated cops finally arrive.
