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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe Plague is worth watching if you want a tense, psychologically focused coming-of-age film rather than a conventional horror story. Charlie Polinger’s feature debut turns an all-boys water polo camp into a closed social world where a cruel in-joke can feel as frightening as a real threat. Its atmosphere and close attention to adolescent power dynamics are its strengths; its portrait of preteen cruelty also draws on recognizable types rather than breaking new ground.
What is The Plague about?
Set at a water polo camp around 2003, the film follows Ben, a socially anxious 12-year-old arriving for a second camp session, when friendships and pecking orders are already in place. The Festival de Cannes describes him being drawn into a cruel tradition aimed at an outcast whom the boys call “The Plague.” Associated Press critic Jake Coyle identifies that boy as Eli, whose acne, rash and awkwardness make him a target, and describes Jake as the boisterous boy leading the group.
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The setup is deliberately uneasy: what starts as a group’s label and game begins to blur with Ben’s fear that something real may be wrong. The film’s tension comes less from solving a mystery than from watching Ben decide how much to trust the group—and what it might cost him to resist it.
What makes the film unsettling?
The pool becomes part of the pressure
Polinger uses the camp’s aquatic setting to give the boys’ social world a distinctive visual texture. Coyle highlights the film’s attention to legs moving beneath the water and bubbles at the surface. Those details suggest a world that is only partly visible: the boys appear to be playing, but menace and uncertainty churn beneath the surface.
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#1 Best Overall
That connection between setting and subject is an interpretation rather than a stated intention from Polinger. It helps explain why the film’s atmosphere can feel more disturbing than its plot mechanics alone would suggest. The pool is not simply a backdrop; it makes the group’s unstable hierarchy feel close, enclosed and hard for Ben to escape.
Social realism, with a brush of horror
The Plague is best approached as an uneasy coming-of-age film that flirts with horror, not as a conventional scare machine. Its ominous, murky mood reflects the intensity of Ben’s perspective and the uncertain line between a cruel joke and a genuine danger. The effect is uncomfortable by design.
Is the story based on a true experience?
The story is fictional, but Polinger has said its emotional core draws on his own childhood. In a Festival de Cannes interview published May 16, 2025, he said journals from a summer camp he attended in 2003 inspired the film. He described the material as shaped by lived experience of shifting power, fear of humiliation and some dialogue, while distinguishing those elements from the invented story.
Polinger has also said he wanted to explore the “violence and vulnerability of boyhood” without the comedy or nostalgia he associates with many coming-of-age films about boys. He described being 12 as a period of intense social anxiety and said he aimed to immerse viewers in a preteen boy’s headspace. The film’s claustrophobic attention to rank, belonging and humiliation is consistent with that stated aim.
How strong are the performances and the writing?
Polinger told Cannes that the young performers worked from scripted material but also had opportunities to improvise and react off-script. That is his account of the process, rather than independent confirmation, but it offers context for the raw, immediate quality the film seeks. The central dramatic challenge is to make a group’s small acts of exclusion feel consequential without turning every boy into a symbol.
Coyle praises the film’s atmosphere and its perceptive handling of adolescent dynamics, calling it an auspicious debut. His reservation is that its preteen figures are familiar: he notes that the film is not charting new ground in adolescent torments. That tension is useful to keep in mind. The film’s force lies more in its execution and unease than in a wholly unprecedented account of childhood cruelty.
Rank #4
Who should watch it—and what should viewers know first?
The Associated Press reports that the MPA rated The Plague R for language, sexual material, self-harm and bloody images, and some drug and alcohol use; the reported material involves children. That makes this a poor fit for viewers seeking a gentle or nostalgic childhood story, and the rating details are worth considering before watching with younger viewers.
Runtime listings differ: the Festival de Cannes lists 95 minutes, while the Associated Press review lists 93 minutes. For current availability, the film’s official site has a Where to Watch entry point, but the cited page does not establish which services carry it in a particular country.
Best Value
Verdict
The Plague is an assured, unsettling debut that turns the familiar anxieties of fitting in into a sustained psychological ordeal. Its murky poolside atmosphere and attention to how boys enforce belonging make it affecting and hard to shake, even if some of its social types will feel familiar. Jake Coyle of the Associated Press awarded it three out of four stars.
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