Sick Girl Year: 2005 Director: Lucky McKee Written by: Sean Hood, Lucky McKee Threat: Insect Weapon of Choice: Proboscis Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: USA IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Please see the Masters of Horror series page.

The tyranist's thoughts
Who the hell is Luck McKee?
Don't answer that. Or, at least, don't answer it by telling me what he's made. I already looked that up and I have the same question. How does someone who has made nearly nothing, and nearly nothing includes a somewhat lauded horror flick that I really don't want to see, how does a nobody get to make a Masters of Horror episode? Cause I want in, and if Lucky McKee is a master of horror, I think I can make the cut.
Anyway, an entomologist of very, very questionable social skills gets an odd bug in the mail. At about the same time, she starts dating a lovely young woman who is very nearly as messed up as she is. Well, the bug isn't as nice as it might seem, and soon things have gotten way out of control. Oh, and the five year old neighbor has been exposed to Lesbians. Very dangerous.
Ths movie baffled me. I found it difficult to follow primarily because I had no way to connect to the main characters. The most sane character in the entire movie is the five year old neighbor girl, and she prefers to be thought of as a lady bug.
I can't deny there was some acting talent here, and once the movie turns to horror, it does so admirably. But by then I'd been lost and I really didn't want to get back into it. Maybe Rish felt differently. If so, this will be one of the first truly odd movies that I loathed and he enjoyed. Normally, we manage it the other way around.
So I can't recommend it, which is a shame, because I'd really been enjoying the Masters of Horror series. Even Chocolate which wasn't really that good, but that was still good enough that I looked forward to more of the series. Now I'm questioning, whether they can really pull it off.
Who knows, maybe next season they'll throw in a few total unknowns, just to screw with the chemistry.
Posted: July 28, 2006

Rish's Reviews
Tyranist and I used to disagree a lot more on movies. When we started the Horror Film Compendium (almost a decade ago, I can hardly believe it), you could make the blanket statement for every review "Rish hated it, tyranist liked it," and you'd be right more times than not.
But, like an old married couple, we've begun to grow similar in our tastes and many of our opinions. Rarely do we disagree on movies, and even more rarely when it's a horror movie.
But we disagree here.
Now, he's totally right that the film is weird, and that it started out as obnoxiously quirky. There's no getting around the fact that Mr. Lucky McGee was trying to make something unique and off-beat, right in line with the fucked-up fans (sarcastic, antisocial, squinting and somehow vulpine, pierced, and dressed in either leather or black) who consider his May to be life-changing cinema. And actress Angela Bettis's character, seemingly channelling both Lilith Sternin-Crane from "Cheers" and Crispin Glover, is purposely idiosyncratic and off-putting, and comes across as more alien than a H.R. Geiger creation.
But about halfway through the film, that aspect appeared to just go away. What was left was a well-told, interesting, and yes, quirky film that I quite enjoyed. I liked the gross bug and the interesting transformation the girl goes through. And a couple of despicable characters get a nice comeuppance. And I watched the ending with a smile. I can't quite explain it.
And maybe I don't have to.*
Posted: March 12, 2007
*Wait, of course I have to. Did you think I would just leave it at that?

Total Skulls: 11

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?