paramount plusIck managed to drain the energy from a lively Midnight Madness TIFF audience within moments of its projection. As is typical with this audience, there was enthusiastic clapping for every logo and light-hearted banter during the ads, but as soon as the movie started, the room fell eerily silent. The excitement and potential surrounding Brandon Routh in a film that promised to evoke 80s classics like E.T. and The Goonies, while mixing in horror elements, quickly diminished. This disappointment was foreshadowed when programmer Peter Kuplowsky, in his usual introduction, mentioned that the film was chosen to honor a past programmer and worsened when director Joseph Kahn revealed that Kuplowsky had only seen 25% of the film and that it was completed just the day before the screening. Ultimately, Ick ends up resembling a high school project rushed in the final moments, not only in terms of quality but also in budget and execution. It appears to be a film made with minimal resources, reminiscent of a student project cobbled together with free online tools.
It stars Brandon Routh as Hank Wallace, a high school science teacher who still pines for his childhood sweetheart and discovers he may have a teenage daughter. As he grapples with this revelation, Hank must also confront a terrifying alien anomaly invading their small town of Eastbrook.
The movie has the detriment of films where bizarre events unfold, yet the characters remain oddly indifferent. If the characters don’t seem to care, why should the audience? The special effects are abysmal, the action sequences are plagued by confusing direction and editing, the score is an obvious MIDI creation, and the excessive use of needle drops only highlights is unoriginal.
Despite Routh’s earnest performance, an a somewhat passable opening montage, Ick ultimately is a total waste of time.
- Where to watch
Crave
paramount plus
Not available for streaming
Play trailer
- Original title
- Ick
- Director
- Joseph Kahn
- Genre
- Horror, Science Fiction, Action, Comedy
- Cast
- Brandon Routh, Malina Weissman, Harrison Cone, Taia Sophia, Zeke Jones, Mena Suvari, Peter Wong, Jack Seavor McDonald
- Rated
- R
- Screenwriter
- Samuel Laskey, Joseph Kahn, Dan Koontz
- Composer
- Bryan Mantia, Melissa Reese
- Cinematography
- David C. Weldon Jr.
- Editor
- Chancler Haynes
- Country
- Language
- English
- Streaming (CA)
- Crave, Paramount Plus
- Buy / rent (CA)
- Apple TV Store, Amazon Video