Sick Boy

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that redefines the ugly depths of cinematic atrocity. Nothing can ever be termed "unwatchable" without being an exaggeration, but Sick Boy is without a doubt one of the most inept, aggravating and all-around unpleasant viewing experiences I've ever had. Most horrible movies at least have the courtesy to be laughable in their utter incompetence — not so with this extremely amateurish story of a nosey imbecile hired to babysit a child with a rare, undefined illness (obvious spoiler alert: it's zombism). In one of the most annoying performances ever filmed, Skye McCole Bartusiak (who has a surprising number of bit-part credits) plays Lucy, an immature, vaguely discontent dabbler who quits every job she starts, much to the chagrin of her asshole fiancé, Chris (Marc Donato, Degrassi: The Next Generation, who is every bit as infuriating as his co-star). After ditching her dental assistant gig and having a trite fight over finances with her beau that would have been more convincing if acted and scripted by a lobotomized gorilla with Parkinson's trying to manipulate hand puppets, Lucy's theatre actor friend recommends her for a well-paying, low-responsibility babysitting job. The interview goes well enough, despite a few peculiarities, and she's offered the position under the provision that she starts immediately. Mrs. Gordan (Debbie Rochon) explains that her son is very sick, but not contagious and that Lucy must follow two simple rules: don't go downstairs to check on him and call immediately if he makes any noise. For some arbitrary reason, Lucy fancies becoming a writer, even though she clearly has nothing to say and no actual talent or passion for the written word. It's basically an excuse for her to throw up her hands in boredom after staring at a blank screen for a few minutes and immediately start snooping around the house for clues that wouldn't have been so blatantly out in the open in the home of anyone actually trying to hide a dark secret. The rest of the movie is an uninteresting and implausible series of predictable events predicated on pure irrational idiocy. Worse, it's all set to a bad, Halloween-biting score punctuated by cheesy '80s metal guitar. On a technical level, Sick Boy is as appallingly incompetent as the rest of this snowball of excrement — the lighting, editing and even the special effects are sub-high school AV club. That's especially pathetic for a film sold on being "by the special effects director of Snow White and the Huntsman." At one point in this featureless DVD, Lucy screams, "Stop!" while bawling her eyes out, which is exactly how I felt during every frame of this low point in filmmaking.