Review: Ick
MPA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Joseph Kahn
Starring: Brandon Routh, Mena Suvari, Malina Pauli Weissman
Runtime: 1 hr 27 mins

What It Is: In a small town, few things capture the community’s attention like the Friday night lights of high school football. For Hank (Routh), the star quarterback and big man on campus, a bright future seems certain—until a mysterious substance causes a horrific injury, robbing him of his ability to play. Without football, Hank spirals, losing his cheerleader girlfriend, Staci (Suvari), and every ticket out of his small town. Fast-forward, and his life has hit rock bottom. The strange substance, known as the “ick,” has grown out of control. As it begins to take over, Hank thinks he’s finally figured out the “ick.” But it might already be too late.

What We Think: First and foremost it is worth noting that in our screening of this at Fantastic Fest director Joseph Kahn stated that in regards to the soundtrack he would “put in a needle drop” and “keep putting more in, even when you think you can’t put more in”. The soundtrack, for its part, doesn’t do heavy narrative lifting. It doesn’t need to. It’s a great one. Filled to the brim with 2000’s era alt rock and emo. As a notorious “elder emo” hearing the various songs Kahn put in here I was happy with what we got but I wanted more B-sides and obscure tracks. Routh is excellent and believable in his role as the quarterback turned science teacher. The film is funny and takes some gloves off jabs at the stupid side of modern society. Kahn doesn’t ever pull punches. In his discussion of this film he made a joke about his previous film Bodied. Stating, and this is a paraphrase “I made a movie about battle rap where you had to become more racist to win”. This is him. He doesn’t filter himself and that’s refreshing. Even here the only guideline he really gave himself was keeping this joint PG-13. Which was an interesting choice. This gave me feeling of a more 1990’s style PG-13 film. Something along the lines of a personal favorite, The Faculty.

Our Grade: A-, I loved this. I thought it was such a refreshing piece amongst what I saw at Fantastic Fest. It’s a lighter film than a lot of the other things that were present there. Kahn is such a visual director, this is probably because of his past as a music video director. Not just any music video director though. He’s one of the most iconic modern examples of a music video director. His clearly visual style oozes out of every pore of this film and that past works well with the design of the music in this film from a both diegetic and non-diegetic perspective. Joe, can I cal you Joe? Gimme more deep cuts on the needle drops. If you need suggestions I got you amigo. Either way he’s made a horror film that really works for everyone in your family.