Many of us probably don’t want to look back at our lives in middle school. The raging hormones, the awkward sexual awakenings, the cringe language and humor, the desperate need to feel accepted, and who can forget your middle school bully who tortured you relentlessly. Yeah, it was fun times and I don’t want to live through it again. This awkward and tortuous phase is at the center of Charlie Polinger’s The Plague which will make you wish that you weren’t young again.
We follow Ben (Everett Blunck), a socially awkward tween who is sent to an all-boys’ water polo summer camp after recently moving into town. He is hoping to make friends and to have a good time over the summer. But what he finds grueling social hierarchy that turns his anxieties into psychological torture.
What first caught my eye with The Plague was how immersive it was. Filled with the sounds of my childhood and shot on 35mm, it felt like I was tumbling into a half-burried childhood memory, or should I say nightmare. I found myself transported back to that strange, in-between time, even though I never played water polo and I am certainly not one of the boys. At first Charlie Polinger’s direction leads us into the quiet unease of adolescents of all of the awkward pauses and uncertain glances. But as the kids’ facade begins to crack, The Plague slips into something dark, realer that it crawls under your skin.
Over the film’s 96 minute long runtime, an entire string of repressed memories from middle school came flooding into my brain. Polinger nails the quiet, relentless horror of being bullied where it eats away at you from the inside. Bullying isn’t just cruelty; its psychological warfare with stretches of physical torture. Ben, played with unnerving precision by Everett Blunk, embodies that slow unraveling where humiliation seeps into your bones until all sense of self is gone. From the casual name calling, to the social ostracization and Ben being held down by his bedsheets as his bullies pour cockroaches all over him, The Plague doesn’t hold back. It captures the painful experience of bullying in full force.
It’s not just the brutality of bullying The Plague captures so well, but the environment and power dynamics that make bullying thrive. When no one is watching, we see a glimpse of humanity in these boys where they feel like kids again. But the moment that their charismatic ring leader, played with chilling control by Kayo Martin, walks in, everything shifts. The air becomes still and the room becomes claustrophobic. Everyone falls into line, terrified of being the next target. Where if you don’t follow his command or even question his authority, he will socially ostracise you and accuse you of carrying “the plague”. And all of his followers will join in his cruelty, afraid of being the next victim.
Overall, The Plague is a horror film about the cruelty of adolescence. It’s a raw, unflinching, and almost too real to bear look at the bullying. Polinger doesn’t exaggerate the experience, he exposes its cruelty and malice. Which is what makes the film so terrifying. It captures the experience of bullying that hits incredibly close to home. Showing us that nothing is more terrifying than reality.
My Rating: A-
Coming to theaters Christmas Day
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