Ick Is Like The Blob Meets Venom, But in a High School Horror Movie

Before Ick screened astatine Fantastic Fest 2024, co-writer and director Joseph Kahn had 2 points helium wanted to marque for the audience. First, helium explained the movie was made to beryllium rated PG-13. He did that due to the fact that helium wanted to service what helium thinks is an underserved assemblage of young teenagers. Second, knowing the assemblage astatine the movie festival was not that audience, helium said the movie made up for it by being wildly overloaded with 2000s pop-punk needle drops.

I notation this astatine the apical of my reappraisal due to the fact that those 2 points perfectly contextualize Ick, a amusive and energetic fearfulness movie that tin beryllium viewed done a prism of the past oregon the present. On 1 hand, it works arsenic a not excessively scary, not excessively gory gateway fearfulness movie with pacing aimed astatine a YouTube audience. On the different hand, it’s besides an allegorical movie astir neglect and ignorance of the satellite astir you, bolstered by each the nostalgia you tin handle. Ick isn’t the expansive slam it wants to be, it’s inactive a large clip astatine the movies, with tons going on.

Ick stars Brandon Routh arsenic Hank, a precocious schoolhouse subject teacher who was erstwhile the aforesaid school’s prima quarterback. He was connected way for shot greatness but an wounded ruined that. And so, successful the 20 years since Hank was the astir fashionable kid successful school, he’s been done a lot.  Hank’s wounded occurred due to the fact that his municipality was, and has been, infected with thing everyone conscionable calls “ick.” It’s fundamentally a weird, achromatic mold that grows randomly each implicit town. No 1 knows what it is, nary 1 knows what to bash with it, truthful they conscionable disregard it.

As you mightiness expect though, the once-dormant ick starts to go a occupation and Hank, having a erstwhile narration with it, finds himself arsenic 1 of the lone radical frightened by it. The teacher successful him puts his students astatine the forefront, but mostly Grace (Malina Weissman); she’s the girl of his precocious schoolhouse sweetheart (Mena Suvari), who near Hank aft helium was injured.

And so, for the bulk of Ick, the ick begins to dispersed astir town, engulfing immoderate people, infecting others, and besides manifesting arsenic each mode of big, weird creatures. That the ick doesn’t person immoderate logical rhyme oregon crushed is 1 of the issues with the film. It’s hard to beryllium disquieted oregon frightened of the ick erstwhile you person nary thought however it operates oregon what it tin do. One happening we bash larn though is that ick lone moves astatine nighttime and is destroyed by ultraviolet light. So airy becomes a limb and each of the enactment takes spot successful the evening.

Which, again, is different contented with Ick. Half the clip you can’t archer what the ick is doing oregon who it’s sidesplitting due to the fact that everything is dark. Thankfully, astir of it time, that uncertainty is backed by a slayer popular punk deed from the 2000s. We’re talking Blink-182, Yellowcard, Hoobastank, Creed—basically if you deliberation of a set from that epoch and style, it’s astir apt successful the movie. Kahn said helium called successful each favour his euphony video vocation could muster for the soundtrack and it delivers. Diegetically, It works due to the fact that it’s the euphony of Hank’s younker and the taxable of the students’ prom. Non-diegetically, it’s a precise circumstantial epoch of euphony that brings you backmost to a clip and spot you either bask oregon not. I autumn into the former.  But, If that epoch and those bands aren’t your thing, there’s a bully accidental Ick won’t enactment arsenic well.

The euphony is incredibly important but the movie has different things moving for it too. For example, it’s hard to ticker Ick and not admit Kahn’s unsubtle reflector to modern society, manifested via the townsfolk ignoring the ick and chalking it up to “false flags” and fake news. The movie works arsenic a fearfulness movie arsenic good arsenic a amusive mode to marque points astir modern science, politics, and more. Then, of course, it’s besides conscionable plain entertaining to spot things similar a excavation afloat of teenagers wholly overwhelmed by the ick oregon a shot field-sized demon turn retired of the ground. The movie sets the ick up arsenic an intolerable force and, by the end, that mightiness inactive beryllium the case.

Ick isn’t going to reinvent the instrumentality but it has its goals, it achieves them, and has a fantastic clip on the way. It’s a movie for astir anyone. And if you are idiosyncratic that checks each azygous box—loves horror, 2000s rock, governmental satire, chill creatures etc.—it mightiness conscionable go a sleepover staple.

Ick precocious played Fantastic Fest successful Austin, Texas. It does not yet person a merchandise date.

Want much io9 news? Check retired erstwhile to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s adjacent for the DC Universe connected movie and TV, and everything you request to cognize astir the aboriginal of Doctor Who.