First time filmmaker Charlie Polinger has made a nerve-wracking film about a group of twelve and thirteen year-old boys at a water polo camp. Everett Blunck stars as Ben, who runs afoul of the established group dynamics of the other boys, where a kid named Jake (Kayo Martin) has started a cruel game to treat the oddball Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) like he has contracted a mysterious "plague." Desperate to fit in, Ben initially goes along with the ostracism, but also finds he enjoys being around Eli, who doesn't seem bothered by the negative reaction.
There have been many films about bullying and the way that adolescent growing pains can turn kids into monsters. However, I've rarely seen a film like "The Plague" that lays out the forces at play so clearly. The kids' cruelty looks harmless, but is extremely hurtful, even in the earliest stages. It's immediately obvious that all of the boys involved in the game are vulnerable in some way or another, and most are like Ben - going along because nobody wants to be in the target role. The ringleader, Jake, is the kind of smirking little instigator that seems Machiavellian to Ben, but later scenes make it clear that this is a child who is processing a lot of negative emotions very badly, and his cruelty is learned. He has no real idea of the consequences of his behavior, or that the game will end up spinning out of everyone's control.
The performances from the young leads are very good, and the writing is perceptive enough to nail the behaviors and dynamics of kids this age, even if the specific vernacular might not be right. Ben is guileless enough to say exactly what he's thinking most of the time, and when he tries to feign amenability or aloofness, he's bad at it. Eli seems to have no self-awareness, which seems odd for a kid his age, but not unlikely. I found myself getting frustrated with Ben and Jake, and had to keep reminding myself that these were seventh graders who may have never been away from home for an extended period before, and whose social skills were rudimentary at best. The kids being so young certainly increased the emotional intensity of the film throughout, and I found myself hyperaware in even the most innocuous dialogue scenes.
You have to suspend disbelief about some aspects of "The Plague." For instance, the only adult presence at the camp seems to be the coach Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton), who is aware of the bullying and does his best to intervene when things get out of hand. However, the lack of supervision was something that I couldn't help fixating on. This is a horror/thriller, largely told from the subjective point of viewpoint of a prepubescent kid, so was this an artistic choice? Was Daddy Wags the only adult around because that's what it felt like to Ben, and the other adults simply didn't register for him? Was this to suggest that the camp, despite catering to the kind of rich kids who would have the money to play water polo, was financially cutting corners? Or was this simply because the "Plague" is a low budget film and couldn't swing the cost of more adult actors?
My instinct is to go with the first option. "The Plague" does a lot with a little, whipping up some potent horror imagery out of swimming pools, darkened bathrooms, and institutional corridors. I especially like the opening underwater shot, where the boys appear to be headless as they tread water. The sound design is a marvel, using human voices as part of the soundscape in places where you might not expect them. Water is a recurring motif, naturally, standing in for the subconscious.
Horror fans may come away disappointed because there's only one real moment of gore, most of the chills are strictly psychological, and the story stays mostly grounded in reality throughout. However, I came away extremely impressed with everyone involved.
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