Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE PLAGUE
Rated R, 1 hour and 35 minutes
Directed by: Charlie Polinger
Starring: Everett Blunck, Kenny Rasmussen, Kayo Martin, Elliott Heffernan, Joel Edgerton, Lucas Adler, Caden Burris, Kolton Lee, Lennox Espy
Writer-director Charlie Polinger’s THE PLAGUE plays like LORD OF THE FLIES meets mother! at a boys’ water polo camp in the early aughts. It’s psycho-adolescent body horror that hammers home the notion that teen boys are terrifying, and especially horrific to each other. Housing haunting performances from the young ensemble, beautifully bruising cinematography and a chilling soundscape that embeds the audience in the psychosis of an empathy-slaughtering melee, the film’s stinging sentiments resonate on a grand scale to anyone who’s ever been bullied, or been the bully. Simply put, this film should be shown as essential text to middle schoolers.
12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck) recently had his life uprooted in the wake of his parents’ divorce, and his single mother sends him away to the Tom Lerner Water Polo Summer Camp as an escape. Our slight-sized hero finds it hard to make friends as many of his new teammates are returning students. Those kids include mop-headed ringleader Jake (Kayo Martin), Julian (Lennox Espy), Matt (Caden Burris), Corbin (Kolton Lee), Logan (Lucas Adler) and Tic Tac (Elliott Heffernan). There’s also one returning player who doesn’t quite fit in with the cool group: Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who’s ostracized due to a blotchy, acne-induced rash that covers much of his body.
Ben is informed Eli has “The Plague” and to stay away lest he catches it too. They say the mysterious contagious disease manifests as hives-like patches on the skin and then attacks the nervous system, turning the brains of those infected to mush. Whatever they wanna call it, it’s just mean, old-fashioned bullying. Eli is also known for his oddball eccentricities, quoting Gollum, playing twisted pranks, and literally dancing to the beat of his own synthesized drum (in a spectacular sequence set to Moby’s techno-fused track, “Feels So Right”). Yet when Ben’s empathy towards Eli inevitably takes hold, the mean boys seize on his compassion, driving him to question what’s real and how to make all the anxiety end.
Polinger and company plunge us into the deep end of one boy’s coming-of-age experience, representing boyhood through journal-like specifity and staggering authenticity. It’s often frightening, frequently funny and ultimately heartbreaking in the loss of naiveté, much like the real journey all tweens take. He walks a fine line that keeps the material out of the dreadful “After-School Special” zone. The timeless subject matter contains unsentimental sentiments dealing with conformity and peer pressure. He roots the drama in character-driven psychosis, infusing it with body horror (a la BLACK SWAN).
The portrait painted is deeply disturbing – a snapshot of a time not too far removed from our current toxic-masculinity-riddled era, in a dystopia-like setting where adult supervision is scarce and youngsters exercise semi-free reign, skateboarding in the halls and lighting bonfires in the backyard. The cold open, where the serenity of the underwater space is disrupted by headless pubescent boys’ bodies cluttering the frame, intones a foreboding sense of violence. So when the camera surfaces, giving us clarity as to the sweet, tiny face of our protagonist struggling with his swim drills, we feel the unease and dread of what’s to come.
The narrative’s build in tautness is handled with brilliantly effective ease, craft and care, mounting the pressure through perceptible shifts in the power dynamic of the boys’ utopian society. Ben treads cautiously at first when one of the crew jumps all over him because of a minor speech impediment that earns him his derogatory nickname, “Soppy.” The filmmaker laces laughter and fear together within the tonal bandwidth – at least before the climax, which spotlights the grotesque alienation of Jake’s tyranny. He ratchets up the tension once the bullies see Ben’s kindness towards the outsider as a weakness. Situations that exacerbate Ben’s physical and psychological problems – like when the team’s well-intentioned yet ineffectual coach (Joel Edgerton) eventually catches wind of the harsh hijinks – hit like a gut-punch.
Rounding out the look, feel and sound of these unrelenting, oppressive horror overtones are cinematographer Steven Breckon, composer Johan Lenox and sound designer Damian Volpe, all of whom enhance the uncanny exploration into these kids’ distorted psyches. The craftsmanship is impeccable, from the dramatic chiaroscuro lighting on Ben when he discovers a large pimple, to the breath-filled, spike-sharp staccato symphonics during the action sequences, to the humming vibration of the film’s entire soundscape.
Blunck, who’s proven himself as an extraordinary new generation talent earlier this year in GRIFFIN IN SUMMER, gives a captivating performance as the new kid just trying to fit in, negotiating the rough tides of puberty. He plugs us into our hero’s vulnerable sweetness as well as his angsty frustrations. He’s got a lot to carry on his slight shoulders and he pulls it off with aplomb. Martin bestows his troublemaker with a raw honesty baked into his DNA. A prankster himself (as seen on his Instagram reels), he applies that mischievous spirit to his character, intoning that there’s a malevolence brewing beneath his character’s phony outer shell. Yet it’s Rasmussen who’s a standout as the camp’s socially awkward soul. His precious lil’ weirdo – a de-facto avatar for those who’ve felt like a social pariah – commands audience empathy as much as their pity. He’s not to be mocked, but embraced.
For those who’ve personally experienced similar dehumanizing torment, THE PLAGUE preys on our own feelings of insecurity, powerlessness and grief, awakening an insidious iteration of nostalgia inside us. It’s a subtly harrowing affair, meant to disturb our memories, stirring up flashbacks. It also takes the “Hurt people, hurt people” mantra to heart in a meaningful way as glimpsed in the ending. Though it doesn’t take a hard line on whether the plague is real or imagined, it’s easy to see that the true disease is us.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
THE PLAGUE opens in theaters in limited release in NY and LA on December 24 and expands in January 2026.
