The Plague Review: Childhood’s End

Few works of art have debunked the idea of childhood innocence as harshly as 1954’s Lord of the Flies, and what makes it such an important work of fiction is its astuteness. Take away the island setting and the shadow of nuclear war and what author William Golding really placed under an uncomfortably powerful microscope was the hormonal awkwardness and oblivious viciousness of prepubescent boys.

Its insights seem eternal, and they inevitably wash over The Plague, first-time filmmaker Charlie Polinger’s chilling portrait of the blithe malice that lurks within a bunch of boys at water polo camp in the summer of 2003.

It should be a perfect environment for 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), hanging out with new friends, getting to be a little mischievous without parental supervision, and watching the teen girls in the synchronized swimming class in the neighboring pool gliding to the smooth R&B of All-4-One. But there’s a fetid sense of danger in the air, that mix of undeveloped moral compasses and hormonal imbalance that makes teen boys so dangerous to each other.

Nominally, coach Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton) is the responsible adult in the room, but he’s often absent or turning a blind eye to the damage inflicted, intervening occasionally with outbursts of tough love and homilies about how boys will be boys. There’s an immediate sense of how even the mild-mannered and compassionate Ben is very aware of how to navigate these turbulent waters. He’s got more than enough strikes against him (his divorcing parents, his vegetarianism, the way he pronounces “stop”), just as top bully Jake (Kayo Martin) would be in trouble for being the shortest kid there if he wasn’t twice as mean as everyone else. That’s kid logic for you: Find someone else to deflect the mob mentality at. Luckily there’s Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) to exile: fat, neurodivergent, and he’s got a skin infection that the other kids call the plague. May as well call it cooties, because it’s just an excuse to shove him out beyond the warmth of the tribal fire. Same as it always was, same as it always will be.

That The Plague is set in 2003 is mostly about writer/director Polinger being able to add some period references and channel his own traumatizing summer camp experiences into the story. That’s part of what adds a brutal plausibility to the turn of events, as Ben inevitably takes Eli’s role as the group’s designated punching bag.

Polinger isn’t reinventing any wheels, but then neither was Golding, since many of his transgressive themes of childhood brutality were part of earlier books. The resonances are what are important, and having storytellers keep those bells ringing with equal measures of compassion and fear is essential (and such alarums should not only be sounded for boys, as Amanda Kramer’s sadly underseen Ladyworld notes the same vindictiveness among girls). The pre-social media setting also allows for a certain sense of isolation – no parents are tracking their kids, and phoning home is basically impossible – but that just means there’s space for an even more contemporary version of this story.

Yet while Polinger has crafted a period piece, there’s a chilling immediacy to these struggles within what’s supposed to just be a fun time for the boys. Cinematographer Steven Breckon subtly color-codes this enclosed environment – the blue-tinged chemical sting of the pool, the fake warmth of the wood-paneled walls – and in the emotional ugliness still finds space for silent beauty in underwater sequences. Yet it’s all deceptive. Like the weeping sores that spread on Eli’s body, the bloody gouges that Ben carves into his thumb with nervous scratching, and the haunted look in Daddy Wags’ eyes, Polinger delivers a troubling and heart-stopping lesson that such childhood horrors will always leave a mark.

This article appears in January 2 • 2026.