The Plague, 2025.
Written and Directed by Charlie Polinger.
Starring Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen, Joel Edgerton, Lucas Adler, Kolton Lee, Caden Burris, Elliott Heffernan, and Lennox Espy.
SYNOPSIS:
A socially awkward tween endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer.
Set at a water polo summer camp in 2003, writer/director Charlie Polinger’s The Plague is an uncomfortably raw look at hazing during an impressionable time in one’s life and its effects on the psyche. The film isn’t exactly treading deep waters with its messaging and point, that it’s important to be oneself even in the face of bullying and to make unpopular decisions, looking out for the ostracized peers, but it’s delivered with the harrowing realism of how cruel boys can be to one another, while effectively tapping into its time and setting.
Ben (Everett Blunck, who has already given one performance this year well beyond his age and experience as an actor with Griffin in Summer, stellar again here, playing a deeply conflicted character) is new at this water polo camp, though it doesn’t take long to get the lay of the land and learn who is who. Jake (Kayo Martin, so believable as a bully with his magnetic facial expressions and cult-like ability to influence those around him) is the leader of a particularly nasty group, still at an age when they believe ruthlessly cranking and mocking each other is a sign of genuine friendship. It’s unchecked male toxicity running rampant, and one wonders what their home lives are like (there are a few details spared).
Perhaps Jake’s meanest act so far, he has convinced those in his circle that the oddball boy Eli (Kenny Rasmussen, highly impressive at walking a tightrope between creepy and harmlessly misunderstood) who refuses to swim shirtless because of bodywide rashes across his back, is infected with a plague and that he will pass along the same side effects if he comes into contact with them. Ben is entirely aware that this behavior is wrong, and even expresses a liking toward Eli’s strangeness in privacy; the kid is nerdy, has a deep voice, doesn’t care what people think about him dancing with an anime girl cutout, and pulls off terrifying magic tricks, giving the illusion he has chopped his finger off. Naturally, it scares Ben in the moment, but he’s curious how it’s done.
However, Jake and his reckless troublemaking clique represent popularity. It wouldn’t be cool to admit to any of these kids that Eli, for all his weirdness and quietness like a kid straight out of The Omen, is mostly normal and fun to be around. This is a friend group who sneaks out at night and causes property damage, asks one another absurd questions involving orgasms and a certain popular song from the time, and generally indulges in the rampant immaturity one would expect from early 2000s teenagers. Again, it all feels honest, which is what (alongside a dizzying score and strikingly framed swimming sequences bobbing above water and down under) gives the rest of the story its almost overbearing, unsettling edge.
Some elements come across as slightly convenient, such as how free this building of adults is, save for the somewhat clueless water polo coach (Joel Edgerton), who knows that bullying is happening on his watch but is not equipped to deal with it in a way that solves anything. Even at night, when the bullying continues with loud noises and screaming coming from the area, it’s a stretch that there would be no adult supervision around. However, one can forgive that considering how primal and raw the rest of the experience is when it comes to growing up with the struggles of fitting in, particularly at a time when political correctness wasn’t on people’s minds and teenagers, mainly boys, were sometimes as evil as can be under a warped sense of friendship or earning idolization.
The Plague gradually builds to a shocking, haunting piece of imagery; the kind that will live on in body horror circles, while also serving a greater point regarding the story. This is the effective type of metaphorical story that weaves it into the characters and authentically chilling behavior.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
