Screamfest review: 'Ick' creature romp blends fun, poignancy, heart

Ick, which screened Tuesday at the Screamfest horror film festival, demonstrates impressive technique to deliver the complexities of its horror comedy. Yet it's all in the service of just plain fun and heart.

A substance called Ick has been growing throughout the town of Eastbrook for over 20 years. They never did anything about it. People just step over it and let it grow.

By the time former Eastbrook High quarterback Hank Wallace (Brandon Routh) becomes the new science teacher, Ick becomes dangerous and starts possessing the locals. It's up to Hank and his students to save the town, or at least themselves, from rampant Ick.

The idea of a crisis ignored would be relevant in any era. The COVID-19 pandemic is the foremost crisis but director Joseph Kahn said at the screening he first had the idea in 2018.

Ick could just as easily apply to climate change, mass shootings and other calamities that would seem urgent, but often feel dismissed. Ick tentacles shooting out of people are more fun than our real-world crises.

There are plenty of epic mayhem scenes where Ick attacks a pool party, a vehicular pursuit and the high school prom. Ick delivers the gooey goods but also makes time for astute satire of the town continuing to ignore the crisis despite its imminent threat.

When federal scientist Dr. Prentice (Debra Wilson) orders Eastbrook to lockdown, the adults decide that having Prom is worth the risk. The coach (Cory Hart) even denies the severity of Ick using very common buzzwords.

Ick also includes anti-vaxer and conspiracy theorist perspectives on Ick in clever commentary on harmful social phenomena. People in town insist Ick is harmless when they are obviously possessed.

Humanity's acquiescence to Ick is scarier than the dangers Ick presents. Ick would be containable if the people of Eastbrook would bother.

Kahn's style makes Ick visually sophisticated. Some might mistake it for aggressive but that would be a misunderstanding of the technique.

The script by Kahn, Dan Koontz and Samuel Laskey covers decades in the characters' lives, consolidating them via fast-edited montages. The individual pieces of the montage may be brief, but there are subtle long term arcs playing out.

The opening montage covers Hank's descent from high school glory and the failure of his romance with high school sweetheart Staci (Mena Suvari). During this montage, Hank's drinking escalates steadily.

Yet when Hank hits bottom, the film pauses long enough to give that moment and allow Routh to embody it. Appropriately, the film largely glosses over the fact that Ick caused Hank's career-ending football injury and that wasn't enough to make people consider Ick a problem.

That style continues throughout the film. Staci and her husband, Ted (Peter Wong), lecture their daughter, Grace (Malina Weissman) in a montage of bite-sized clips. It's still one conversation though that is easy to follow across multiple scenes.

The background also reveals important aspects of the story. In one scene, a student visibly mocks Hank's limp behind him, showing Hank's station in Eastbrook without stating it explicitly.

This is an energy missing from most current Hollywood movies. It's built into the visual evolution of our recording technology so anyone adept at watching footage on screens can follow it, and yet most entertainment just settles for capturing content.

A camera move in one shot continues in the subsequent shot, like a relay race passing the baton from shot to shot. Yet, Ick knows when to give its characters their moments.

Hank and Grace are forced to talk when trapped in a car together. The age gap is palpably awkward, yet they manage to connect through it.

It is great to see Routh get the kind of tragic, endearing role Hollywood neglected to give him because the industry only saw him as a superhero. Suvari also gets to play a character with fun pointed barbs.

While fans of the established actors will appreciate Ick as a vehicle for them, the cast playing Eastbrook students are wonderful discoveries. Weissman captures Grace's generational frustration with adult authority, but also independence from her peers.

Taia Sophia plays a goth girl without the cynicism that defined the type in previous generations. Her romance with shy artist Griffin (Zeke Jones) is endearing.

As Grace's boyfriend Dylan, Harrison Core captures the confidence of a jock using the vocabulary of tolerance to be a judgmental jerk.

It's fun to watch that eclectic group of characters navigate both the Ick and the adults they can't count on to protect them. Ick makes viewers care who survives the Ick, but also has fun accumulating its body count.

Screamfest continues through Oct. 17 in Hollywood, Calif.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.