‘The Plague’ review: Joel Edgerton produces, stars in timely hazing drama

Dir/scr: Charlie Polinger. US/United Arab Emirates. 2025. 98mins

Author/director Charlie Polinger’s jittery first characteristic takes place at an all-boys water polo camp, the place adolescents inflict their merciless hazing rituals on their most delicate teammates. The Plague will get its title from a made-up affliction troubling an ostracised oddball outcast, who earns the sympathy of a kindhearted newcomer performed with nice tenderness by Everett Blunck. The movie has a lot to say about peer strain and male rites of passage, though Polinger’s factors can turn into repetitive and his insights not particularly deep. Nonetheless, this uneven combination of coming-of-age drama and psychological horror suggests a filmmaker with a aptitude for unsettling environment.

Polinger does sturdy work along with his younger forged

Premiering in Un Sure Regard, The Plague ought to appeal to consumers because of the presence of Joel Edgerton, who serves as producer and in addition portrays the crew’s shockingly ineffectual coach. Polinger faucets into potent, albeit acquainted themes about poisonous masculinity, which provides the challenge a miserable timeliness.

In the summertime of 2003, sweet-natured 12-year-old Ben (Blunck), who has simply moved from Boston to an unspecified US metropolis along with his mum, joins a water polo camp, the place he meets a number of the veteran campers together with cocky chief Jake (Kayo Martin). Ben learns that the crew picks on Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a quiet, awkward child they imagine has ’The Plague’, a leprosy-like pink rash that’s supposedly contagious. Eli does, certainly, have a rash, however his teammates’ vindictive mockery (and their insistence that ‘The Plague’ is actual) appears absurd to Ben, who decides to befriend this outcast — at his personal peril.

Opening with an eerie, slow-motion underwater shot of the campers leaping into the pool, The Plague shortly raises alarms that one thing ominous awaits. Johan Lenox’s discombobulating rating, emphasising distorted vocals and unusual digital sounds, solely additional accentuates the disorientation Ben feels round his brash, cliquish polo teammates. Turning adolescent areas into surreal horror settings is commonplace, however Polinger places us into Ben’s mindset as he tries to navigate his anxieties round being bullied.

The movie works greatest at its most enigmatic, leaving the viewer unsure about this so-called ‘Plague’. Early on, Jake tells Ben a cautionary story about how Eli supposedly acquired it from a former camper who was ultimately despatched to a psychological establishment due to the illness — a narrative that sounds preposterous. However The Plague provides simply sufficient believable moments of unease that, whereas we by no means absolutely settle for the crew’s theories about this affliction, we perceive the way it turns into such a strong worry — to not point out a deft metaphor for the dread most adolescents have about being shunned by their friends. The extra time the compassionate Ben spends with proudly peculiar Eli, the extra legitimate the ‘Plague’ turns into, reconnecting us with the feverish irrationality of that emotionally charged time of life.

Polinger does sturdy work along with his younger forged. Blunck impresses as a good younger man who finds himself shedding his ethical compass as soon as he panics that Jake will flip his teammates in opposition to him. Rasmussen believably portrays an outsider whose quirkiness may very well be an act or, maybe, an indication of extra profound points. Tellingly, Edgerton barely seems in The Plague, a distant paternal determine of no assist to Ben, who turns to him for steering and will get, arguably, the least-inspiring pep speak in cinema historical past.

Sadly, The Plague typically overdoes its frenzied air of paranoia and worry, and its closing sequences push for dramatic crescendos that aren’t fully earned. And Polinger’s research of adolescent hormones run amok ends in predictable conclusions, regardless of the forceful unhealthy vibes and cinematographer Steven Breckon’s moody 35mm pictures. For a movie about an unpleasant, irritating rash that spreads inexplicably, The Plague creates a strong feeling of discomfort – although it doesn’t at all times get beneath the pores and skin.