The uncertainty that ran rampant during the first wave of COVID-19 offered plenty of day-to-day horror—a banal trip to the grocery store suddenly felt rife with things to feel afraid of. But in a new thriller from Blumhouse (and written by Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer scribe Kevin Williamson), COVID-19 exposure is a far less fearsome fate than being trapped in quarantine with a mysterious assailant.
Directed by Alone’s John Hyams and co-written by Katelyn Crabb, Sick follows two best friends, Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million), travel to a secluded lake house in April 2020 to wait out a quarantine period. Soon enough, a few more friends join the group, hoping to bring some levity to their isolation period. “Quarantine can be fun,” Parker’s love interest DJ (Dylan Sprayberry) opines.
As it turns out, DJ really should have knocked on wood. When a killer silently slips into the home and begins terrorizing the group, the walls of a mansion that once felt enormous start closing in—but hey, at least he’s wearing a mask!
As the first trailer for the project demonstrates, an early 2020 isolation period makes a perfect foundation for a home-invasion thriller. Notably, it also limits the ways any of our heroes can seek help. In one clever moment towards the end, Parker finally encounters a good samaritan while running from the mysterious killer—only to be refused entry into her vehicle due to her lack of a mask. As the murderer slowly creeps up on a bloodied and sobbing Gideon, the woman nervously says, without opening her door: “It’s just not safe.” In spring 2020, besides learning to make sourdough, what was?
Marc Menchaca and Jane Adams round out the principal cast of Sick, which arrives on Peacock for streaming on January 13.