Adolescence and horror fit together like peanut butter and jelly. There is something about the natural elevation of emotion that comes with puberty – something we can all remember even if we’re long past it – that lends itself to the high stakes that come with horror intruding on daily life. Even if you’re not tackling the question of puberty and emerging hormones directly, as films like Carrie and Ginger Snaps do, you can still get some startling results.
But when you do take that direct approach, and take it earnestly and with care toward your young characters? Well, that’s a recipe for something a lot of horror fans won’t soon forget, and The Plague definitely falls into that category. In his feature film directorial debut, writer/director Charlie Polinger has made a film that’ll get into your blood and set it boiling, one of those films that’ll make you squirm in your seat even after it’s over. It’s a must-see, and seems destined to fall into place as one of the finest coming-of-age horror films out there.
Ben (Everett Blunck) is an awkward, gangly teenager attending an intensive summer water polo camp away from home. Under the tutelage of the camp’s head coach, known to the kids as “Daddy Wags” (Joel Edgerton), this gang of pre-teens attempts to bond in and out of the water, but put any group of tween boys together, and you’re going to have at least one outcast. This time, that role is fulfilled by Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a kid who tends to sit in the corner by himself, always wears a swim shirt, and has his own somewhat mystifying worldview. According to Jake (Kayo Martin), one of the “cool” kids at the camp, Eli has “The Plague,” a mysterious and contagious affliction that’s passed by touch, so all the other boys have to stay away from him, and if they do touch him, they have to scrub themselves like crazy in the shower.
Assuming “The Plague” is some sort of social game, Ben plays along, but he also carries a growing curiosity about Eli. He wants to fit in, but he also wants to know what it is about this particular boy that made him the chosen social sacrifice, and what he might share with Eli that could make him a target. The deeper he gets, the closer he comes to a nightmare.
The first master stroke in this ever-expanding canvas of discomfort is Polinger’s decision to set the film in the early 2000s. This ensures that cell phones and the internet in everyone’s pocket won’t intrude on the story, but it’s more than just a logistical choice. For one thing, everyone who was in their tweens and teens in the early 2000s is now an adult who can clearly remember, with some added perspective, the sense of social brutality that was present in those years. For another, removing the specter of terminally online kids purifies the experience, makes it somehow more timeless. There is no escape into a mobile game or a social feed for these kids. There’s only a rawness, a sense of a wound opening.
This is helped along by an almost claustrophobic approach to filmmaking craft from the sound design to the score, all of which is marshalled by Polinger into something expressly designed to make us shift in our seats, scratch that itch on our arm, pull ourselves into a ball of anxiety. The movie plays like an extended social anxiety panic attack, bolstered by great performances from the three young leads, particularly Blunck and Rasmussen, who hold nothing back. The film’s tension builds as Ben keeps asking his questions, wondering how much of The Plague is a game and how much is all too real, until, by the end, it’s a simmering cauldron of dread.
The metaphors at work are obvious, whether you want to view the film as a simple Lord of the Flies-esque study of sociological brutalism or an allegory for queerness or neurodivergence. What makes The Plague special is its sensitivity, not just in the moment when the kids are vulnerable, but in the moment when they’re really laying into each other. There is a sense, in everything from the performances to the costume design, that some great force is at work in pulling at these kids, like a riptide. You can swim against its current, but it’s still going to grab you, drag you further out, and get you lost. We can all remember this feeling, and in The Plague it’s treated with such care and sincerity that we can’t help but feel it all over again. This is an uncomfortable film, but it’s also one of the best-executed pieces of social horror of the past half-decade, and one of 2025’s essential watches.
The Plague is in theaters on December 24.
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