Sick Girl (2007)

the audience applauded

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Others have said the acting was terrible, notable the titular character. I cannot disagree more about her. The portrayal of a psychopath was spot on. Seemingly normal and caring in ordinary life, but absolutely without empathy and totally ruthless when dealing with those who would hurt her family. it it is her portrayal which has stuck with me in the years since I've seen this, and is the reason I Recommend this film to others. The other characters may be lacking, I honestly don't even remember or care, as the central role is riveting. It makes the film. Watch this film. But do beware it is not for the faint of heart. There are some gory and disturbing scenes. She is a very sick individual like the title says.

Izzy(Leslie Andrews) is VERY protective of her brother. In fact, Izzy doesn't tolerate bullying of any kind. More than a tad unstable, Izzy has taken over for her older brother(stationed in Iraq)as guardian for Kevin(Charlie Trepany), the little brother who is a sweet, gentle-hearted kid with a kind soul. Izzy is the opposite, cold and calculating, remorseless when it comes to hurting anyone who triggers her psychosis. Izzy's love for her older brother, Rusty(Chris W King; who had to become caregiver and father for the three of them after their parents' deaths)borders on incestuous(in actuality, she kisses Rusty and considers him the "father" and her the "mother" of their family which creeps him out enough that once he goes to Iraq he doesn't communicate with them for over a year while away). We do learn towards the very end of the film that there's ultimately a reason for Izzy's psychotic break as it pertains to Rusty. The bottom line is that Izzy lacks empathy for anyone other than Rusty and even that is a delusion she has cooked up in her mind, that he will return to her someday and they will become a happy family. The truth is that Rusty had a love in his life and this woman is subject to Izzy's wrath because she stands in the way of some illusion..hell, Izzy even sleeps with Rusty's picture right next to her! There's a vacuous expression in both her demeanor and voice in regards to her treatment of others, particularly those she has kidnapped, holding them prisoner in a barn near her home. It's a dirty little secret Izzy keeps hidden from Kevin and his substitute father figure and best friend, Barney(John McGarr), a pal of Rusty and their father's. Barney is the sanity Kevin so desperately needs. Izzy is clueless as how to live a normal life without destroying most of those she comes in contact with. Whether its a young man and woman she tortures(the former through a castration, the latter via anal rape with a wooden spike dildo), or the bullies in Kevin's class, Izzy has no qualms causing each and every one of them pain and suffering, without any sense of right or wrong. Izzy is essentially a psychopath without a moral compass to dictate rational behavior. Which is why by the end, Izzy has no one and will forever be alone and without any sort of support. Her cruelty towards the kid bullies is eye-opening in its sadism, having the leader of the group, Tommy, to murder his cohorts(which he does, he thinks, to save his own hide). What Izzy does to Tommy is even worse, using a shovel to knock him unconscious, allowing a starving rat to gnaw on the kid's face! There's no limit as to the lengths Izzy will go which is kind of the point..Barney and Kevin haven't the foggiest notion just how depraved Izzy is until they see it with their own eyes, the result quite tragic. Stephen Geoffreys has a small role as Kevin's teacher, the owner of a rat that Tommy stole to starve.

Oh boy, where to start with this one. This is absolutely one of the best and sickest movies I have seen for awhile, for a low-budget movie. It's about a rural family that the children, the oldest boy, youngest boy, and in the middle is Izzy, the sister that goes completely berserk after her oldest brother joins the military, are living since their Parents died. Izzy is a short gal, that was schooled by her brother in some martial arts, and turns into a killing machine. First off is a school bus, full of students and nuns, and Izzy kills them all and pisses on a Nun. Then she kidnaps a couple of boys that have been bullying her brother, by forcing the main bully to kill the other two. That boy and a couple end up tied up in the families barn, and that's where the movie goes to a different level of torture and one particular scene that completely blew me away for being so decadent and extremely shocking. "Sick Girl" is so over the top, with some of the most sadistic scenes I have ever seen, and delivers them with no remorse and in graphic detail. I have to admit, I was expecting this movie to be a cheapo, that was predictable but something I might like. It was way way beyond that, and for an old gorehound like me, I couldn't believe the extreme direction the movie takes. It sets up also for a sequel, that they absolutely have to make. Izzy is such an insane killing machine, that one movie is not enuff for this character. I kept looking for the teaser trailer scene of her blowing away a movie audience because they were annoying her, but that scene is not in the movie. It is however in the Special Features, and could be in a sequel very easily. I absolutely loved this extreme and graphic thriller, it shocked the hell out of me. There is plenty there for gorehounds too, I think the gorehound fans will like it, but far more that gore, the movie is just down right nasty. Nothing is held back, Izzy is a homicidal maniac, and I could not recommend this tasty little movie any higher. This is a must-see for anybody that has the same demented taste in movies as me.

Let's cut to the chase. The creator-provided synopsis goes, "A girl who wants to protect her little brother, f*ck her older brother and torture everyone else out in the barn." Any questions? Well, while undeniably accurate, the film isn't quite as simplistic as this would suggest. Izzy (Andrews) is left to bring up her young brother (Trepany) after her older sibling heads off to Iraq with the Marines - both parents are absent, and the reasons for this are, interestingly, never made entirely clear, though we have some evidence for Izzy's involvement. The only one who helps out is Barney (McGarr) a biker who plays Santa Claus at the local hospital, but it's soon made clear that Izzy is entirely capable of fending for herself. Especially when a proto-thug at the local school decides to pick on her kid bro.Izzy is an intriguing mix, a character somewhere between Juno and Dexter; to those she loves, she is fiercely loyal, yet anyone else had best not cross her, or the results will be horrific, in ways beyond your imagination - certainly, at least one sequence goes well beyond **our** imagination! I think it's her sheer cold-blooded approach that is the most chilling thing here, and Andrews is simply phenomenal in the role, possessing a calmness which is completely unnerving. Even when engaging in brutality of the most appalling sort, you suspect her heart-beat rarely goes above 85. She even takes time out to lecture small children on the evils of bullying, where her philosophy is, "There's nothing wrong with hurting things smaller than you - providing you also take on things bigger than you. Then size is irrelevant." Cold: very cold. If you want to peer into the abyss which is the very darkest corner of the human psyche, then this is low-budget cinema at its brilliant best. However, you should be aware that you might see things you will not easily forget.