Starring a Former Superman, Alien Invasion Meets 2000s High School in This Delightful Horror-Comedy

Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve lived long enough to see my own teen years be depicted in nostalgic movies. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this Y2K kick that’s been going for the past couple of years, and now it seems that TV and movies have moved on from the Stranger Things-led ’80s nostalgic trend and onto the 2000s. Who can blame them? Things have gone to hell since then, and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that I grew up in the last truly decent era. Ick certainly seems to think so. It’s a riotous new horror-comedy that feels like a loving throwback to Mean Girls and the sharp, witty high school movies of the 2000s, and manages to position an older millennial as its main character without feeling the need to mock him, punch down, or act like he is so tragically past his prime. In the hands of music video director Joseph Kahn, it plays out as an incredibly stylish (yet also derivative) horror-comedy and a loving homage to a bygone era.

What Is ‘Ick’ About?

Ick gets a lot done in its first five minutes. It’s 2000-something, and Hank Wallace (former Superman Brandon Routh) is the top jock in his high school. He’s a quarterback, prom king, all-around nice guy, and Staci (American Beauty‘s Mena Suvari, herself an icon of this era), the hottest cheerleader on the squad, is his girlfriend. But something’s up with his hometown: this strange, alien plant is slowly but surely growing all over the place, wrapping its gnarly tendrils around everything, and one day at the big game, it grabs Hank, breaking his leg and ending his promising sports career. This just so happens to occur on the same day that his girlfriend breaks up with him. We then get a montage that shows us how this led to his downfall, through alcoholism, family bereavement, and a dead-end career. But he finds the strength to reinvent himself, and soon is working as a chemistry teacher at the very same high school he attended. And we learn all of this before we even get an opening title card.

In the present day, this strange plant, now named The Ick, is simply a fact of life that everybody has become accustomed to. But it is an insidious force, and one day it breaks out, going on the attack and either consuming or possessing anyone in its path. Meanwhile, Staci’s teen daughter, Grace (Malina Weissman), who may or may not have been fathered by Hank, is caught up in the madness, and he is determined to rescue her. It’s a fun homage to the sci-fi B-movies of the ’50s and ’60s, with heavy influence from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Day of the Triffids, that plays well to modern audiences and offers plenty of 2000s nostalgia in its look, tone, and, of course, soundtrack.

‘Ick’ Is a Fun and Stylish Horror-Comedy

Poster for Ick — Image Via Fathom Entertainment

Ick makes its position as a sharp, cutting, thoroughly 2000s-feeling piece known from the get-go. Making great use of highly stylized cinematography and editing, it quickly builds a dynamic world that is full of energy and character. Although such invasion horrors often like to juxtapose the before and the after by having a very normal, everyday setting being taken over by a chaotic force, Ick chooses a different path in which the town itself is far from sleepy. It’s bursting with life and activity, so when alien plants suddenly start making meals out of people, it’s no surprise that it takes everybody a while to notice. It feels like a stylistic extension of the world that has been established.

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This has to be one of the most frantic alien invasion movies I’ve ever seen. It’s not a matter of focusing on the main characters in the front and zapping laser beams around them. Ick gives us entire house parties full of teenagers, each being wrestled, snatched, splattered, and squished in their own unique ways, while the camera worms its way through the madness, allowing you to take in the sheer scope of it all. Cinematographer David C. Weldon Jr. really delivers, with his camera constantly turning, panning, spinning, and finding new and interesting ways to frame the alien action. The movie has an irresistible wild energy to it that pairs perfectly with the slightly janky-looking CGI, making sure it always has an enjoyable edge, no matter how wild or violent things get.

‘Ick’ Plays Well to Audiences of All Ages

A mutant cow in Ick — Image Via Fathom Entertainment

What is perhaps most remarkable about Ick is the way it bridges the gap between millennials and Gen Z, both within its own fictional world and in its audience. The emotional crux of the story is Hank’s potential paternity of Grace. She sees him as a teacher and something of a friend, while he feels protective over her and increasingly convinced that she is, in fact, his daughter. With this in mind, the movie gives them the space to talk things out, to get to know each other more deeply, and explore what their world might look like if it turned out that they are related. She reminds him that he can’t just waltz in 18 years later, having missed all the small but important things that parents do for their children, and expect her to see him as a parental figure. It’s a harsh truth that Grace has plenty of, but she is never reduced to annoying, bitchy clichés, nor is he just a hapless old guy who doesn’t understand the youth. They’re written and played with enough sensitivity that you feel for both of them, as they make steps in their relationship while pointedly avoiding saccharine territory.

Ick seems like it is not made for one particular generation, but for all of them. People in their 40s can enjoy the nostalgia, and its reflections of how the folks of their generation are now that they are firmly in adulthood. Meanwhile, Gen Z viewers are well catered to with its interesting young characters and all the trappings of the modern world. But it’s the way these characters interact, learn, and relate to each other that makes it a warm and enjoyable experience. This could have easily fallen into a mean-spirited, one-sided dig at the other side, villainising either the kids or the adults. While it has its laughs, the script has a clear fondness for its characters and helps to perpetuate the humor of it all amidst an alien invasion.

The pacing and comedy feel like they slow down a little at the beginning of the third act, but Ick is largely a very entertaining, engrossing, and endearing take on a classic staple of mid-century sci-fi horror, reworked for the 2020s. Brandon Routh offers a lot of charm as the leading man upon whom the story and emotionality heavily rely. Malina Weissman, who is probably best remembered as Violet, the sensible oldest Baudelaire orphan in Netflix’s TV adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, has a juicy, more mature and characterful role here to play with, and she does it well. The alien invasion setup works well for a collaboration between horror and comedy, and with its electric style and dynamism, Ick makes the most of everything it has to deliver a fun, light-hearted movie that also contains some freaky aliens.

Ick is in select theaters in the U.S. now.