Masters of Horror — Sick Girl
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The screener for Sick Girl showed up on our doorstep via messenger at just about the same time the East Cost feed of the Showtime series was about to come on. So much for getting the scoop, but we do still have a review of the episode. (I’m surprised to hear how many people are saying they don’t have Showtime and are waiting for the DVDs — though, I’ve also been told by some that they subscribed to Showtime just to catch Masters of Horror. Indeed, it is less expensive than the entire DVD set will be.)
While director Lucky McKee’s masterfulness (yes, that is a legitimate word) is questionable, he does know the genre. His first feature film, 2002’s May, did not quite work for me but it had some great elements of horror, and showed me a lot of promise. It’s got a strong and loyal cult following. May starred Angela Bettis, and so does Sick Girl.
For the screenwriting duties, McKee teamed up with Sean Hood, whose horror resume includes Halloween: Resurrection, Cube 2: Hypercube, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Unfortunately, some of the latter seeps into Sick Girl via awkward dialogue, but Hood’s done more good than bad in my opinion — I’ve watched Resurrection and Hypercube two or three times apiece.
Sick Girl starts slow and builds, mostly focusing on a lesbian love relationship between Bettis’s character Ida, an etymologist, and a younger girl named
Bettis plays Ida as if she were channeling the real Dorothy Parker through the fictional Dr. Herbert West, but with none of their malice. She’s a stiff, staccato-talking, bun-wearing manners-minder, while Misty is shy, sweet, hippie-haired, and never afraid to say exactly what she thinks.
Unfortunately, Misty’s thinking process is altered by Mick who worms his way in and makes her brain all bugsy. To say any more would probably give something away, but it should be noted that Sick Girl’s only real horror elements don’t come into play until the last 10-15 minutes of the show.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson