Ick (2025)

"Manic SF Satire from the director of DETENTION"

The new film from director Joseph Kahn, whose BODIED (2017) and DETENTION (2011) were solid hits at London's Frightfest film festival, has just received a Digital release from Signature Entertainment.

The film opens with a rapid edit of scenes cut together like a movie trailer that moves so fast you may want to watch it twice before carrying on as we learn the story of high school football jock Hank (Brandon Routh) and his girlfriend Staci (Mena Suvari) who, 'sometime in the 2000s' split up after Hank broke his leg, Staci fell instead for Ted (Peter Wong) and Hank slid into alcoholism, getting a job as a janitor at the school where he was a student and eventually becoming a science teacher there because 'the English posts were all full'.

This is all played out against the background presence of the titular Ick, a kind of plant-based version of THE BLOB (1958) which is seen playing on TV at one point. No-one knows where the Ick came from but it seems to be slow growing and benign and is dismissed by the community it's slowly invading.

Then of course its growth suddenly speeds up to the point of going completely mental and consuming as many people as it can come into contact with. The military comes in and tries to contain the problem but the stupidity of the townsfolk "We are all entitled to our opinion!" means that soon our leads are on their own again with only Hank to save Grace (Malina Pauli Weissman) who might be his daughter, as well as anyone else who will listen. 

ICK is as fast paced as DETENTION and if you enjoyed that movie's combination of rapid fire editing and sharp witty dialogue then you're going to like this as well. The 'creature' is rendered with CGI but definitely has an old movie monster feel to it, at one point even exhibiting a pleasing 'climax of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT' vibe on a football field, although Kahn has said he was actually inspired by Spielberg's JAWS (1975) and JURASSIC PARK (1993). Either way ICK is tremendous monster fun that you're going to love if this is your kind of thing. Here's a trailer:

Joseph Kahn's ICK is out on Digital from Signature Entertainment now