“The Plague” begins as an unnervingly authentic portrait of early adolescence, a time when cruelty often hides behind laughter and the need to belong outweighs the instinct to be kind.
Set in the height of the sweltering summer of 2003, the film follows twelve-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), a socially anxious preteen attending an all-boys water polo camp. What starts as a realistic depiction of middle school hierarchy and insecurity gradually morphs into something far darker and more unsettling.
At camp with his coach (Joel Edgerton), Ben finds himself drawn into a cruel tradition targeting Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a lonely, acne-ridden outcast accused of carrying a contagious “plague.” Part hazing and part superstition, the game begins as a joke but soon spirals into an escalating ritual of fear and extreme humiliation. The paranoia deepens as the line between imagination and reality blurs, turning the camp into a psychological pressure cooker.
The film’s brilliance lies in how it uses the idea of “the plague” as both metaphor and menace. The disease spreads not through germs, but through rumor, shame, and peer pressure. Writer-director Charlie Polinger crafts a deeply uncomfortable study of groupthink and the social contagion of cruelty, exploring how meanness can infect a group of kids desperate for acceptance. It’s a stunningly accurate portrayal of modern-day bullying.
The film is a disturbing hybrid of coming-of-age drama and psychological horror. Its realism in the first act, from the petty hierarchies, awkward humor, and small humiliations of adolescence, makes the later scenes all the more unsettling. The horror stems from how plausible it feels.
The performances from the young cast are strong across the board. Blunck captures the painful hesitancy of a child torn between empathy and the desperate need to fit in, while Rasmussen gives a heartbreaking performance full of quiet dignity and confusion. Together, they anchor the film’s more nightmarish turns in emotional truth.
Digging deeper into the narrative, Polinger offers up a sharp examination of masculinity, conformity, and the moral compromises of adolescence. The story expresses how young boys internalize social codes that reward dominance and punish vulnerability, and how fear of alienation can override morals and basic human decency. The film feels less like a myth than a diagnosis of cruelty as something learned, spread, and perpetuated.
Unflinching, tense, and disturbingly insightful, “The Plague” is one of the most unsettling coming-of-age films in recent memory. It’s a dark meditation on adolescence, cruelty, and the cost of belonging.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 