The Plague

At an all-boys water polo camp, anxious twelve-year-old Ben tries to find his niche amid the social hierarchy. The pecking order quickly becomes clear: At the top, the charismatic camp veteran Jake; at the bottom, Eli, an awkward misfit shunned by the others for being allegedly afflicted with a contagious “plague,” marked by red blotches that could be acne, or… something else. As Ben navigates between his desire for acceptance and sympathy for Eli, he is forced to confront his own complicity in the malevolence of adolescence, and whether it is better to be cruel or cast out.

Skillfully blurring the lines between reality and horror, The Plague is a tense and suspenseful coming-of-age thriller. The setting is also pitch-perfect: Few things evoke more terror than a teenage boys’ locker room. With breakout performances from young actors Everett Blunck and Kayo Martin, and a strong supporting turn from Joel Edgerton as a camp director ill-equipped to tamp down the rising mayhem, this stylish and unnerving film brilliantly exposes the sickness of social pressure.