Plague Review – Water Polo Camp Turns Into Hell Tween with an Impressive Stylist Touch | film

SSet at a boys’ water polo training camp in the summer of 2003, Charlie Bollinger’s debut film dives below the waterline to explore hidden psychological depths. It may not be news that these kids operate in a brutal, animal-like hierarchy, driven by bravado, bullying, harassment and gaslighting – but from the startling underwater opening shot of a swimming pool sparkling like a star field, Bollinger brings an impressive stylistic touch to this hellscape: the kind of razor-sharp intent you might associate with David Fincher.

Latecomer Ben (Everett Blank) is thrown into the deep end upon his arrival. Desperately seeking to ingratiate himself with the cool crowd controlled by the villainous Jake (Cayo Martin), he aims to avoid the outcast status of the Lomox household Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who is supposedly infected with an (artificial) disease that the kids call “the plague.” Anyone who touches Ellie should rub themselves immediately lest they begin to develop symptoms of diminished brain function and eventual exhaustion. Ben meekly falls in with psycho Jake, despite Coach Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton) insisting that he should be himself.

The first hour of The Plague is terrific, with echoes of the initiation rituals you see in the works of Lucille Hadjilojlovic, in a drunken box fire explosion, and in bursts of Larry Clark-style irreverence. In addition to the visual intensity when he observes Jake’s crowd almost like a nature documentary, Bollinger has a keen ear for nonsense lifted straight from a 12-year-old’s imagination. Topics of conversation here include: ’90s rock band Smash Mouth, the wonder of pirates, the ethics of bestiality, and the best way to fake chopping your thumb.

By flirting with body horror, the film never quite resolves its suggestion that the plague, if not quite real, could be psychosomatic. As Ben shifts into an eccentric corner, The Plague begins to succumb to predictable beats and reveals its influences too easily: the way it casts Eli as a pre-pubescent Private Pyle, and the ending is lifted from Beau Travail. Aside from the always reassuring Edgerton, the three young actors stand out in their unfiltered crudeness: Blanc is eager to please and increasingly annoyed; Martin is terrifying despite his small stature. Rasmussen extends the role of cartoonish geek into a truly unsettling outside world. This is an unforgettable education in the laws of the jungle.