Ick

I saw a couple of lines of another review saying "the actors looked like they were having fun making it".

Well, I guess if you take a bunch of no-name and has-been actors, that don't have anything else to do, then offer them free food, cocaine and $50 to act in an incoherent movie that don't follow its own rules and then make the whole thing for half a million bucks (seriously, it can't have cost more than that) ... then you have this piece of garbage.

Seriously, this makes movies from The Asylum look good. Really.

Just watch The Faculty, Deep Rising or/and Infestation instead. You'll have a MUCH better time that wasting it on this stupid CGI-trash.

Ick!

I wondered what I was watching at first as the beginning starts very much like a comic book or a send up of a typical American High School Movie but boy am I glad I stuck with it.

It moves so fast that if you're not careful you miss some of its funniest moments.

This is not a serious movie so if you want to be scared then this isn't for you. But if you want to be entertained then this ticks the boxes.

Just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Saw this opening at Screamfest at The Mann Chinese Theatre. Super fun film with a great cast. You can tell watching it that everyone involved had a really great time making the film. It feels like a movie made by people who really love films especially those from the 90s and early 2000s. Parts reminded me of Eight Legged Freaks, the Faculty, and Lawnmower Man. It harkened back to a time when popular horror films were more about having a good time then being a deep intellectual pursuit. Not that I mind a brilliant brain bender, but it is refreshing to see a film not take itself so seriously.

The cast was brilliant. Brandon Routh was incredibly charming and funny as the lead, Mena Suvari was great as well. Malina Weissman really carried the film well with her grounded yet endearing performance. Harrison Cone was hilarious as the overly performative, virtue signaling douchebag. Two great breakout performances came from Taia Sophia and Zeke Donovan Jones. Their awkward goth romance added a ton a heart to the film. I suspect these two actors will be future fan favorites.

Is Ick stupid? Yes. Is Ick bad? Intentionally so bad that it is good. This film is trying to be a terrible and goofy B-movie and parody, and I found myself laughing more than I have while watching any other comedy this year.

Ick is a great guilty pleasure for anyone who loves sci-fi horror. The Blob and The Thing fans will get a lot out of this.

Context: I am 60+ now, degreed and experienced in cinema, with three Generation "Z" boys. So this movie is not for me, it's for them. I only give it 6-stars because it misfits my own entertainment needs. I expect teenagers and young adults who were tweens and teens in 2000-2010 will connect with this much better.

That being said, I would describe this as being a hyper-paced satire that pretends to be about horror but is really about our modern culture, especially that which Gen-Z must suffer through.

The Ick, being a familiar but mostly ignored and unexplained creature that suddenly becomes destructive, is a METAPHOR.

It represents cultural rot, something that grows everywhere and we complacently ignore it until it becomes antagonizing, and many of us continue to try ignoring it, or minimizing it, to our demise.

Once you watch this movie with those lenses it begins to make more sense. Listen carefully to the dialog and you'll hear the indoctrination of critical theory (identity politics and oppression narratives), postmodernism (nihilism), postcolonialism (anti-settler narratives), and capitalism vs socialism debates. All of it is not to preach any of these, but to make fun of it. The Ick not one of these things or the other, it's the ignorance, the complacency, the intolerance, and the polarization of these variant invasive philosophies.

You could even frame the Ick as poststructuralism - which is best imagined as a culture-bomb - wherein all of these other ostentatious disciplines are its components.

In effect, the movie is a lot smarter than it appears, but if you are older than Gen-Z and you are not aware of its goals, then it's look completely dumb and a waste of your time. As I say, if that describes you, it wasn't made for you. It was made for the kids who grew up in our mess.

I cannot say its humor made me laugh a lot, but it delivered some chuckles - it's wit is dry and fast so you have to keep up.

I do think that the editing is very choppy though, and doesn't do it service. Had this been smoothed out a little it would have been more palatable.