‘The Plague’ Movie Review: Water Polo Camp Is A Living Hell In Harrowing Horror Drama
Photo from Indepedent Film Company
From Jeremy Kibler
Being an insecure 15-year-old boy on the water polo team in high school was hard, but to be a preteen boy at a water polo sleepaway camp? That sounds and looks like a living hell, at least according to The Plague, the unsettling and technically sharp writing-directing debut of Charlie Polinger. In some ways, this does play like a psychological horror film—call it “Lord of the Flies in the Nat” if you want—that can be cruel to its adolescent characters, albeit with purpose. It feels like a nightmare at times, but for those of us who have narrowly survived puberty, it feels all too real.
Gangly 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck) has just moved from Boston, and he’s desperate to make friends. For the summer of 2003, he has been enrolled at a water polo camp with other boys his age. In the boy group, there seems to be a pecking order, led by monstrously manipulative ringleader Jake (a believably cocky, facially punchable Kayo Martin). Ben is nice enough to Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a quirky, pimple-faced loner who may be on the spectrum, before realizing that everyone else ostracizes him for having “the plague” (really, it’s just a skin condition). What develops is a social game of survival for Ben, just so he can belong.
Simple and harrowing, The Plague tells another bullying story that will always be relatable. It’s set in 2003 but could have been set in 1994 (back to the release of Moby’s “Feeling So Real,” which becomes this film’s running song) or even now in 2025. Adolescence produces little shits in any generation, but writer-director Charlie Polinger finds a special level of dread that’s hypnotic to watch. Just in his feature debut, Polinger somehow earns the compliment to be fluent in the same cinematic language as Yorgos Lanthimos or even Stanley Kubrick.
Directed with an observant and suggestive visual eye, the film achieves so much in a spare way. For a story mostly set in a natatorium, it’s stunningly shot by cinematographer Steven Breckon on 35mm; underwater shots are also striking and remarkably crystal-clear. The horror-toned, vocal-heavy score by composer Johan Lenox would seem purely attention-getting, like it’s waving its hands at you from the screen, but it is intentionally abrasive and effectively jarring. Not unlike TV’s Yellowjackets in terms of material and feral sound, it instantly puts the viewer on edge as a soundscape that shouldn’t fit but completely does.
Leading the way in the theater-kid coming-of-age indie Griffin In Summer, Everett Blunck is two for two this year alone. Both characters couldn’t be more different, and Blunck does exceptionally vulnerable work here as Ben. Likewise, Kayo Martin and Kenny Rasmussen are naturals playing two sides of boys their own age; one would never know they’ve never acted professionally before. The only adult who gets a chance to leave an impression is Joel Edgerton, playing the boys’ coach who shows compassion and does thankfully call out the bad behavior when witnessing it.
Adults like to chalk up male bad behavior to “boys will be boys,” but mean boys really do suck just as much as mean girls. Of course, there is no actual “plague” in The Plague, just frontal lobes that have yet to be developed and innate kindness that cannot be taught. However, there is a touch of metaphorical body-horror that dips into the literal when a character contracts Eli’s infectiously itchy, flaky skin (it’s worse than “cooties”). If the conclusion doesn’t really get to the end of anything—and perhaps therein lies the point—it does leave one wrestling with how uncomfortable it can be to be a child figuring out what’s right and wrong.
The Plague is a strong start for Pollinger, showcasing himself as a filmmaker to watch who knows how to get the most out of young actors and how to create a vividly suffocating mood. It’s not actually too on the nose to say that growing up is like treading water.
Rating: 3.5/5
The Plague is currently in select theaters.
