Before Ick screened at Fantastic Fest 2024, co-writer and director Joseph Kahn had two points he wanted to make for the audience. First, he explained the movie was made to be rated PG-13. He did that because he wanted to serve what he thinks is an underserved audience of young teenagers. Second, knowing the audience at the film festival was not that audience, he said the movie made up for it by being wildly overloaded with 2000s pop-punk needle drops.
I mention this at the top of my review because those two points perfectly contextualize Ick, a fun and energetic horror movie that can be viewed through a prism of the past or the present. On one hand, it works as a not too scary, not too gory gateway horror film with pacing aimed at a YouTube audience. On the other hand, it’s also an allegorical film about neglect and ignorance of the world around you, bolstered by all the nostalgia you can handle. Ick isn’t the grand slam it wants to be, it’s still a great time at the movies, with lots going on.
Ick stars Brandon Routh as Hank, a high school science teacher who was once the same school’s star quarterback. He was on track for football greatness but an injury ruined that. And so, in the 20 years since Hank was the most popular kid in school, he’s been through a lot. Hank’s injury occurred because his town was, and has been, infected with something everyone just calls “ick.” It’s basically a weird, black mold that grows randomly all over town. No one knows what it is, no one knows what to do with it, so they just ignore it.
As you might expect though, the once-dormant ick starts to become a problem and Hank, having a previous relationship with it, finds himself as one of the only people scared by it. The teacher in him puts his students at the forefront, but mostly Grace (Malina Weissman); she’s the daughter of his high school sweetheart (Mena Suvari), who left Hank after he was injured.
And so, for the majority of Ick, the ick begins to spread around town, engulfing some people, infecting others, and also manifesting as all manner of big, weird creatures. That the ick doesn’t have any logical rhyme or reason is one of the issues with the film. It’s hard to be worried or scared of the ick when you have no idea how it operates or what it can do. One thing we do learn though is that ick only moves at night and is destroyed by ultraviolet light. So light becomes a weapon and all of the action takes place in the evening.
Which, again, is another issue with Ick. Half the time you can’t tell what the ick is doing or who it’s killing because everything is dark. Thankfully, most of it time, that uncertainty is backed by a killer pop punk hit from the 2000s. We’re talking Blink-182, Yellowcard, Hoobastank, Creed—basically if you think of a band from that era and style, it’s probably in the movie. Kahn said he called in every favor his music video career could muster for the soundtrack and it delivers. Diegetically, It works because it’s the music of Hank’s youth and the theme of the students’ prom. Non-diegetically, it’s a very specific era of music that brings you back to a time and place you either enjoy or not. I fall into the former. But, If that era and those bands aren’t your thing, there’s a good chance Ick won’t work as well.
The music is incredibly important but the film has other things working for it too. For example, it’s hard to watch Ick and not recognize Kahn’s unsubtle mirror to modern society, manifested via the townsfolk ignoring the ick and chalking it up to “false flags” and fake news. The movie works as a horror movie as well as a fun way to make points about modern science, politics, and more. Then, of course, it’s also just plain entertaining to see things like a pool full of teenagers completely overwhelmed by the ick or a football field-sized demon grow out of the ground. The film sets the ick up as an impossible enemy and, by the end, that might still be the case.
Ick isn’t going to reinvent the wheel but it has its goals, it achieves them, and has a fantastic time along the way. It’s a film for almost anyone. And if you are someone that checks every single box—loves horror, 2000s rock, political satire, cool creatures etc.—it might just become a sleepover staple.
Ick recently played Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. It does not yet have a release date.
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