The Plague

At an all-boys water polo camp, socially anxious 12-year-old Ben is pulled into a cruel tradition targeting an outcast with an illness they call ‘The Plague’. But as the lines between game and reality blur, Ben fears the joke might be hiding something real.

Blending shades of body horror and psychodrama, writer/director Charlie Polinger instinctively captures the combustible nature of adolescence in his debut feature. It follows a group of 12-year-olds who believe an inexplicable disease is spreading among them at a water polo summer camp. The film’s young ensemble strikes a raw nerve in how realistically they exchange crude jokes, form alliances, and tear each other down.

Shot on 35mm and contained almost entirely to the campgrounds, The Plague burrows itself under your skin – singular and affecting in how viscerally it transports you back to the social anxiety of adolescence. According to RogerEbert.com, it is a film about puberty ‘and the toxic codes young boys play out not just to belong, but to dominate’.