TORONTO, Canada—Director Joseph Kahn turns the high school comedy and alien invasion subgenres inside out with Ick, a delirious tale of an unidentifiable substance and the human population that simply doesn’t care much about it.
In true B-movie fashion, this Midnight Madness selection at the Toronto International Film Festival is energized by a gonzo spirit—as if The Faculty had been remade by Sam Raimi—that prioritizes whiplash style, pointed one-liners, 2000-era musical cuts, and extremely goofy gore over depth. Playfully mocking today’s always-online, virtual-signaling teen generation while simultaneously embracing its bevy of old-school tropes, it’s exactly the sort of crowd-pleaser designed to be seen in a theater, after dark, with a rowdy audience.
Hank (Brandon Routh) is a science teacher at his alma mater Eastbrook High School, where—as conveyed by an adrenalized prologue full of twisting, turning cinematography—he was a star QB and the boyfriend to lead cheerleader Staci (Mena Suvari), destined for NFL fame and fortune, until an injury killed his prospects. That calamity is the fault of the Ick, a tendril-y plant that’s sprouting up all over town.
Following two decades of ups and downs involving alcoholism, janitorial work, and a career change, adult Hank is trying to convince his kids to focus on his classroom lesson rather than their phones. However, his student Grace (Malina Weissman)—the daughter of real estate agents Staci and Ted (Peter Wong), the man for whom she left Hank—thinks there’s a very good reason to have her nose in her smart device: namely, the rapidly spreading Ick contagion.
Hank is similarly worried about this plague, but no one else is the least bit concerned. Ick’s main joke is that even in the face of apocalyptic calamity, mankind is apt to ignore and put up with it, not to mention view it through the prism of their own selfish, blinkered worldview.
On television, conservative and liberal commentators attempt to tie their opponents to the Ick. The football coach (Cory Hart) thinks it’s probably going to improve humans’ biological capabilities. Another teacher suspects it has something to do with the deep state. A new mother discusses the crazy medical reasons that she’s going to just say no to any Ick vaccine. And kids are daring each other to lick it as part of a viral TikTok “Ick Challenge.”
Ick moves at a blistering satirical pace, so that one second it’s taking shots at Americans (Republicans and Democrats alike) for their selfish and disengaged attitudes, and the next it’s having a school PA announcer announce that the film club will be playing Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó for those who want to watch “seven hours of Hungarians being sad in black and white.”
Kahn, Dan Koontz and Samuel Laskey’s script has a rat-a-tat-tat quality that leaves no one unscathed—an approach epitomized by one character referencing Harry Potter, to which another instinctively replies, “JK Rowling sucks.” Nonetheless, perhaps no group gets slammed as frequently as self-important progressives, here embodied by Dylan (Harrison Cone), the dashing new star QB, who can’t go a minute without scolding people (and the patriarchy) as sexist, racist, and ableist.
Dylan is a 21st-century variation of teen movies’ popular clean-cut hunk archetype. Despite the fact that he’s full of hot air, he’s managed to charm girlfriend Grace, who’s recently landed on the waitlist to Oberlin, thus spoiling her dream of attending college with Dylan. When not fretting about her future, Grace is intent on having her goth best friend Heather (Taia Sophia) make her feelings obvious to the artist she likes.
Hank, meanwhile, accidentally discovers that the Ick may be vulnerable to UV light, and this proves an important piece of information considering that the organism—which resembles Venom’s tentacles—is becoming more aggressive and, in certain cases, even attacking Eastbrook residents.
During Hank’s purchase of the bar that his late dad (Jeff Fahey) once owned, he puts two and two together to deduce that Grace may be his biological offspring, thereby giving him good reason to make sure she doesn’t fall prey to the Ick. It’s not long before the Ick is rampaging through this squeaky-clean suburb, possessing certain citizens and consuming the rest, including at a house party where boys’ attempts to get into girls’ pants are interrupted by a massacre of out-of-this-world proportions.
Kahn doesn’t go light on the murder and mayhem, although frustratingly, quite a lot of it is depicted in murkiness that seems intended to mask subpar CGI effects. The Ick may be a kindred spirit to the Blob (whose own original big-screen appearance is spied on television), but that’s no excuse for it occasionally looking like a splotchy mess.
The second half of Ick is devoted to one madcap set pieces after another, all of them staged by Kahn with innovative flair. His camera rotating, tumbling, and—in one late vertiginous shot—plummeting, the director casts the proceedings as a horror-comedy rollercoaster, and he earns more than a few chuckles from his jabs at turn-of-the-millennial culture, whether it’s a recurring gag about Hank’s outdated MP3 player (it can hold ten songs!) or a soundtrack filled with rock hits by Fountains of Wayne, Good Charlotte, and Plain White T’s.
Front and center throughout, Routh marries handsome stoutness with smirky exasperation, and his performance has more than a bit of Bruce Campbell’s Evil Dead hero Ash Williams in it. Willing to poke fun at himself and his big-screen legacy (via a comment about Kansas that resonates as a nod to his Superman Returns past), and yet also capable of affecting all-American strength and bravery, the actor proves himself comfortable with such wittily nasty material.
Moreover, he has good, sharp chemistry with Weissman, whose prickliness and intelligence—as well as her “Virginity Rules” t-shirt—marks her as a prototypical final girl.
Back in its beloved 2000s, Ick would have had the potential to become a quotable cult classic. In today’s age of endless streaming options, however, it remains to be seen if that’s still possible—a notion that’s the definition of the film’s title.
