Latest news with #ThePlague
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Plague' Review: Joel Edgerton in a Thrilling Drama That Captures the Terror of Adolescent Masculinity
Charlie Polinger opens his thrilling and uneasy directorial debut feature The Plague with an arresting sequence that quickly establishes the haunting undertones of this adolescent psychological thriller. The ambient, muffled sound of sloshing water is set against a shot of the bottom of a pool. One by one, swimmers drop into the massive indoor basin. Their spindly legs move awkwardly as they try to get in sync. It's 2003, and these are the middle-school-aged attendees of the Tom Lerner Water Polo camp. From this angle, Polinger and his cinematographer Steven Breckon make these kids look like phantasmic figures. An eerie sense of unreality runs through The Plague, which premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Working from a screenplay he also wrote, Polinger uses horror conventions to tease out the psychic terror and intimidation of pre-teen social codes. In the age of renewed questions about and considerations of the manosphere, The Plague is a prescient title. Polinger's film is not as dark as Netflix's popular miniseries Adolescence, but it does circle similarly unsettling themes — like the way the terms and tenets of masculinity are dictated by arbitrary rules, or the cost of nonconformity among young men. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes: 'Militantropos' Directors on Identity and the Limits of Art: "The War Has Become Part of Us" Cannes: Salty Pictures Sets Martial Arts Drama '8 Limbed Dragon,' Starring UFC Fighter Jingliang Li (Exclusive) Ethan Coen, Wife and Writing Partner Tricia Cooke on Lesbian B-Movies, Trump, Re-Teaming With Joel Key performances carry The Plague and alleviate the occasional strain of overwrought direction. Relative newcomers Everett Blunck (stellar in Griffin in the Summer) and Kayo Martin portray opposite ends of youthful angst with an engaging sincerity and terrifying accuracy. Martin, with the subtlety of his judging expressions, seems especially made for his role as Jake, the resident cool kid who weaponizes his sharp attention to detail. The actor plays well against Blunck, who portrays Ben, a new camper trying to figure out where he fits among the various cliques. An anxiety-inducing sound design (by Damian Volpe) and score (by Johan Lenox), coupled with an appropriately icy visual palette built on grays and blue, help tell Polinger's nail-biting story. When Ben (Blunck) arrives at the water polo camp, he quickly notices the hold that Jake (Martin) has on the other boys. The teen with the mess of blonde hair functions as a ring leader and, with his approval, Ben becomes part of the crew. The other boys call Ben, who just moved from Boston, 'Soppy' on account of the fact that he garbles the 't' in the word 'stop.' One thing Polinger makes clear early on is how closely Jake scrutinizes the other boys — noticing minor characteristics that differentiate them from one another — and uses those observations to mock them. This skill keeps Jake in power, making him an intimidating person to everyone, including the boys' coach Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton, in a brief but effective turn). Ben watches the others too, and he quickly picks up that no one hangs out with Eli (Kenny Rasmussen, also excellent). The quiet child keeps mostly to himself, eating lunch in the locker room and occasionally sleeping there too. According to the other kids, Eli has the plague, a vague disease that allegedly begins with a rash and renders the infected unable to socially function. Jake warns Ben to stay away from Eli and to wash his body should he accidentally get too close. In a clever move, Polinger never establishes if the plague is real because even if it isn't, the fear it sows is. The remainder of The Plague follows Ben as he tries to reconcile social acceptance with his own moral code. He understands that people shouldn't be exiled for their differences and yet the idea of losing his place within the hierarchy keeps him up at night. Blunck deftly portrays Ben's inner turmoil and the anxiety his journey produces. Polinger deploys jump scares, intimate close-ups (especially of Jake and Ben staring at one another) and elements of body horror to recast these coming-of-age dilemmas as high-stakes, nightmarish challenges. When the director widens his scope, to survey the broader social behaviors on display, The Plague adopts a primal urgency and the film possesses the feverish energy of William Golding's Lord of the Flies or Claire Denis' Beau Travail. In one of those scenes Polinger observes the boys during lunch, excitedly speaking over each other and laughing. The camera ominously cuts (editing is by Henry Hayes and Simon Njoo) between views of the group and the faces of individual campers. For the most part, they are children having a good time, but if you look closely you can see a flash of panic beneath the cheerful visages. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Horror Buffs at Image Nation Abu Dhabi, Spooky Pictures Love 'Cool Shit' and Have Unleashed ‘The Plague' at Cannes
High concept, low budget, straight-forward creative lens – that is how Emirati studio Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles-based genre label Spooky Pictures target movies under their partnership that is bringing one of its features to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. No need to mince words either. 'The creative mandate is: cool shit,' producer and Spooky co-founder Steven Schneider (Pet Sematary, Paranormal Activity, Insidious) tells THR. 'We also always just look for things that are original and will surprise us,' adds producer and Spooky co-founder Roy Lee (It, The Ring, A Minecraft Movie). 'The guiding light when we start out is that we want to make a movie that somebody thinks is their favorite movie of that year or of all time.' More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Highest 2 Lowest': Spike Lee on Trump, Cannes Scandals and the Knicks' Championship Chances: "We're Going to Win!" UTA's Rich Klubeck Is Juggling Wes Anderson, Kelly Reichardt and Ethan Coen at Cannes Jafar Panahi: The World's Most Acclaimed Dissident Filmmaker The duo found a partner in crime in Image Nation CEO Ben Ross, bringing together what Schneider calls three 'historical horror buffs' on a mission. 'Steven and I had been threatening to do this for probably 15-plus years, and the three of us have known each other for a really long time,' recalls Ross. 'So when the two of them discussed launching something together, it was pretty easy just to go and do it, because we know genre films and like the business.' This year, the dynamic trio for the first time ever hit the Croisette with a movie premiering in the Cannes selection, namely New York-based Charlie Polinger's debut feature The Plague, which debuted in the Un Certain Regard section on Friday. Its cast features an ensemble of new faces, including Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin and Kenny Rasmussen, and Joel Edgerton (Boy Erased, Black Mass, Loving), who also has a producer credit on the film via his banner Five Henrys Productions, along with additional producers Hellcat and The Space Program. 'At an all-boys water polo camp, a socially anxious 12-year-old is pulled into a cruel tradition targeting an outcast with an illness they call 'The Plague',' reads the ominous synopsis. 'But as the lines between game and reality blur, he fears the joke might be hiding something real.' Edgerton was already attached to the project when the partners boarded it. His involvement as a producer mirrors the starring and producing roles that David Dastmalchian had on the Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes-directed Image Nation-Spooky horror box office hit Late Night With the Devil, which in its prologue is framed as a documentary investigating an unexplained event that occurred on Halloween night 1977 during a live broadcast of a late-night talk show, and which delivered IFC Films' highest-grossing opening weekend ever. Dastmalchian and the companies are now replicating his double duty on their recently unveiled new feature, The Shepherd. 'That dual role is incentivizing,' explains Schneider. 'Nobody's getting rich up front on these movies. We are, I think, more than fair for low-budget movies in terms of what we are prepared to pay people. But we are trying desperately to keep the above the line as minimal as possible.' Adds Ross: 'We also try to make all the actors feel like they are real partners. They are doing these things for significantly less of a payday than they can normally get. Everything goes on screen when we design the financial plans for our films. We treat the actors as partners, so they are significant stakeholders in the back end. We all win together, or nobody wins.' How else does The Plague fit into the partnership's business model? 'The model is basically $5 million net budgets or below, big concept, well executed, directors that we believe in and want to bet on – whether they are first-timers or established, and not cast contingent in the usual way,' summarizes Schneider. The three veterans trust their taste and instincts and all use words such as 'different,' 'fresh,' 'original,' and 'fun' when discussing what kind of projects they look for. Explains Lee: 'If we read the first act of a script and could predict everything that is going to happen, it's actually a movie we don't want to do. We want the movies that veer in different directions.' The content can originate from anywhere. 'As far as the business perspective, we operate under the premise that content is global,' Ross tells THR. 'So we make it for a global audience, whether it's in Arabic, which a lot of Image Nation stuff is, or in English or Spanish,' like one project currently in the works. One fundamental thought the partners all share is that creative, artistic, and financial considerations are not mutually exclusive. 'Our movies can be artistic and commercial at the same time,' emphasized Schneider. 'They just have to be scary. They have to be spooky.' Is there a slate goal, such as a certain number of movies the three target per year? 'We don't have a set goal. We just judge things as they come in,' emphasizes Lee. 'When we love something, we want to try and make it.' That has meant that, in contrast to most studios' operations, the partnership has made all movies it has decided to develop. One thing that makes The Plague different is that it will be the partnership's first film to be sold upfront, with that process starting at the Cannes market, where UTA and Cinetic will be co-selling the U.S. rights and AGC International handling the rest of the world. Chloe Okuno's psychological thriller Watcher was the team's first feature. Among their upcoming films are Oddity director Damian McCarthy's supernatural horror movie Hokum, starring Adam Scott (Severance), which is currently in post, Randall Okita's Menace, starring Isabel May (1883), and Archangel, written and directed by Bryan Edward Hill and starring Conor Leslie (Titans, Man in the High Castle) Greg Hovanessian (Cardinal), and Alyshia Ochse (True Detective). Given the entertainment industry's various issues, what is a key hurdle for the Image Nation-Spooky team? 'The biggest challenge is finding great projects,' highlights Lee. 'Because there are so many things out there in the marketplace and there is a lot of competition, you just have to be able to discern the ones that will rise above the others and that will be great.' One promise that can make a difference is trust in the creatives and their vision. 'We really try to be completely collaborative with our filmmakers,' says Ross. 'We want to show them that we believe in them. We really don't dictate a lot. We are all going to work together.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘The Plague' Director Charlie Polinger Used the Horror Genre to Capture the ‘Chaos and Anxiety' of Male Adolescence
'The Plague' filmmaker Charlie Polinger simply wanted to make a film that actually reflected his adolescent experiences. 'I see a lot of movies about 12 year old boys that are often either a little more 'Goonies'-style biking around at night [that are about] this kind of carefree feeling or a little more bro-y hangout kind of movies. My sense of being 12 was it was more like [a] social anxiety hellscape,' Polinger told Executive Awards Editor Steve Pond at TheWrap's Cannes Conversations in partnership with Brand Innovators. 'You see that [represented] more commonly, I think, in movies about women or about young girls, [movies] like 'Carrie' and 'Raw' and 'Eighth Grade.' You don't see it as often in films about boys because there's a certain vulnerability to [being] the object of terror or to [feel] insecurity in your body. There's sort of a fear of that vulnerability being shown [when it is] centered around masculinity,' Polinger observed. 'I thought it could be exciting to kind of take a genre that I've seen more with women and apply it to a story about boyhood.' The resulting film, 'The Plague,' marks Polinger's feature directorial debut. It follows Ben (Everett Blunck), a young boy at a water polo summer camp for boys headed by an adult male instructor (Joel Edgerton). Ben quickly finds himself torn between his fear of being ostracized and his conscience when the camp's other boys begin to bully Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a fellow campmate whose skin condition prompts his bullies to declare that he has 'the plague' and run screaming loudly in the other direction whenever he comes near. 'I'm actually a very bad swimmer,' Polinger revealed with a laugh when asked how he conceived the film's story. 'It came from experiences I had going to some all-boys summer camps, and my experiences at those and my experiences being that age in school and in general — and wanting to tell a story that felt like it really immersed the audience in the subjective experience of being a 12-year-old boy and all of the sort of chaos and anxiety that comes with that.' Polinger wrote the film while he was staying at his parents' house during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was not until Edgerton agreed to star in it years later that Polinger was finally able to put 'The Plague' together. 'I think at first [Joel] was actually inquiring about directing it, and I was like, 'I really have to do this one,'' Polinger recalled. 'He was [then] generous enough to offer to act in it and help produce it, just to help get it made. That was really the thing that took us over the edge and [helped us find] the financing.' While Polinger notes that 'The Plague' is not a 'traditional horror film,' the thing that always excited him about the project was the chance it would give him to immerse viewers in its young protagonist's perspective — where things that adult viewers might not think are a big deal feel like they have 'like and death stakes.' 'That's where the genre stuff came from,' Polinger said, before revealing that he even looked at war films for reference. 'Every single glance and every whisper feels dangerous,' the director explained. 'I really was just trying to think about how Ben, the protagonist, would feel in any given moment, and [I tried to] find ways to cinematically evoke his interior state through the external world.' Watch the full video below. The post How 'The Plague' Director Charlie Polinger Used the Horror Genre to Capture the 'Chaos and Anxiety' of Male Adolescence | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
CairoScene
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
‘The Plague' Is a Coming-of-Age Body Horror That Hits Hard
'The Plague' Is a Coming-of-Age Body Horror That Hits Hard We're inside the pool, looking up. Everything is still. A body plunges in. It shatters the calm. Bubbles explode like fireworks. Another splash follows, then another. Heads dip under and rise again. Legs kick furiously, desperate and uncoordinated. The kids kick their feet to stay above the water. Their movements aren't graceful. It's pure survival. Each kick is a plea to stay above, to breathe. We quickly realise they're kids in a water polo practice who have been tossed into the deep end of the pool. Twelve is the age when life stops being still. It's when the calm ends and the struggle begins. It's hard to believe 'The Plague' is Charlie Polinger's first feature film. His direction is remarkably confident, distinct, and entirely his own. The film premiered in Un Certain Regard to rapturous applause, and I'm sure it will go down as one of the most promising debuts of the year. A chilling descent into the horrors of bullying, 'The Plague' captures the suffocating dread of being young, isolated, and targeted by other peers. It's one of the most effective horror films on the subject ever made. And yes, that includes Brian DePalma's Carrie. This is no light compliment. 'I wanted to explore the violence and vulnerability of boyhood in a way I hadn't seen on screen. Many coming-of-age films, particularly about boys, tend to be comedic or nostalgic, but for me, being 12 felt more like a living hell of social anxiety,' Polinger tells CairoScene. In the film, this anxiety stems mostly from the fear of getting acne. Only the kids in this water polo team refer to it as 'the plague'. It's something we've all felt at that age. That feeling when you wake up and go straight to the mirror. You're afraid of what you'll see. Your fingers already reaching for skin that might betray you. And then you spot it. A red bump forming on your forehead, cheek, or chin. You feel that slow panic build up. The way your confidence vanishes in seconds. The walk to class feels longer. Every glance feels like judgment. You keep your head down, avoid eye contact, and pray no one notices. It's not just about skin. It's about shame, exposure, and the unbearable feeling that everyone's looking. Even when they're not. Polinger shoots this very specific stage of puberty like a body horror film, and it works brilliantly. It's one of those ideas that feels so obvious in retrospect, you wonder why no one's done it before. Even if this ground has been explored, it's never been shot quite like this. The cinematography is incredibly stylised, and the score is deeply unsettling. Together, they turn adolescence into something monstrous. The film focuses on Ben, a quiet and observant newcomer who becomes the target of increasing cruelty and humiliation from his peers. At the centre of their fixation is 'the plague,' a slang term they use to describe acne. It's treated like a contagious curse. What begins as teasing escalates into ritualistic torment. The kids unite against whoever shows signs of the infection. The story explores how fear, shame, and group dynamics contribute to the brutal enforcement of conformity. With haunting visuals and a disturbing sound design, 'The Plague' captures the suffocating anxiety of being young, vulnerable, and different. The coach, played by Joel Edgerton, is a steady presence on the sidelines. He's there to keep things in order. When he suspects bullying, he confronts Ben and tells him that this, like everything in life, will eventually pass. But kids don't have the patience to wait. When they're being bullied, time doesn't move forward. It slows down. Every second stretches. What adults call 'a phase' feels, in the moment, like forever. The cast of child actors is incredible, especially Everett Blunck in the lead role and Kayo Martin as Jake, the ringleader of the bullies. Jake has a way of spotting the tiniest flaw. You see a smirk creep across his face. He's like a lion who's just spotted a wounded prey. The moment he realises Ben has a lisp, he locks onto it. Calls it out, mocks him, and turns it into a nickname that sticks like a scar. The film also explores how you can find yourself on both sides of the line, bullied or bully. And when you do it just to fit in, being the bully can feel frustrating and painful. There's a particular kind of ache that comes from betraying your own sense of right and wrong just to avoid becoming a target yourself. It's the slow burn of shame. The quiet guilt that lingers long after the laughter fades. It's not the pain of being hurt. It's the pain of hurting someone else. The film doesn't let you look away from that. It shows you the ugly side of both ends and makes you sit with it. Just when you think you know where the film is headed, it surprises you. The ending, in particular, stayed with me. It's cathartic in a way that sneaks up on you. It felt raw, emotional, and beautifully earned. A big part of that impact comes from its killer soundtrack, which features a perfectly placed Moby track that elevates the final moments into something unforgettable.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Plague' Review: Joel Edgerton & Cast Of Young Newcomers Turn Summer Boys Camp Into A Psychological Nightmare
The Plague, a world premiere today in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, may be fiction, but it brought back vivid, not-so-pleasant memories of my days in elementary school and at the Catalina Island Boys Camp, where every 12-year-old in my cabin nicknamed the kid we labeled a chronic liar and outcast as Skag. We didn't believe this extremely awkward kid about anything including that his father had won four Oscars, as he kept bragging, but the fact is after I got home I discovered it was true. If only we had cell phones and IMDb in those days, Skag might not have become the target of our obsessive bullying. And then in the fifth grade, my entire class zeroed in on one poor girl named Karen who we nicknamed Ledbutt. We all secretly even cut her photo out of our copy of the class photo, something I still have to this day to remind me childhood can be terribly cruel. I too was singled out. It happens. More from Deadline Cannes Film Festival 2025 in Photos: 'Dossier 137', 'Amrum' & 'Sirât' Premieres Beta Cinema Gives Mid Cannes Market Sales Update On 'Let It Rain', 'The Physician II' & 'The Light' Jacob Elordi & Lily-Rose Depp To Star In Cormac McCarthy Adaptation 'Outer Dark' - Red Hot Project Bubbling At The Cannes Market Set at an all-boys water polo summer camp, The Plague is on the precipice of horror, but this is no Friday the 13th. Bullying and targeting are their own brand of horror, so I would call this film more of a frightening psychological drama centering on the 12-year-olds aiming for acceptance and conformity at the expense of one lone outcast. It came from writer-director Charlie Polinger's own summer camp experiences, even though the characters here are all made up. It is far less intense horror than Carrie and more along the lines of a Lord of the Flies, the book turned twice into a movie and one every schoolboy read before The Lord of the Rings took over. Set in 2003, 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck) finds himself on the edge of manhood and in a moral crisis as he tries to fit in with other campers but has some guilt about partaking in what they call the 'plague,' a fictional malady they collectively decide to create for one unsuspecting camper whom they claim has been stricken with this awful affliction. If you should even touch him, you will get the plague. Chubby and socially inept Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) is the object of this disaffection because he has severe acne on his face and back — and also because, well, he is kinda weird, not at all like the 'normal' kids including bully-in-chief, Jake (Kayo Martin), the pathetic terrorizing ringleader of this bad behavior. Ben increasingly is troubled but also wants to be one of the group, and his doubts are spelled out in his eyes. Trying to keep order is Daddy Wags, the camp counselor nicely played in a supporting role by Joel Edgerton, who also is a producer. But he can only do so much, and you know boys will be monsters given half the chance. In the Trump era, now it is worse since we have sort of license for this type of behavior considering the influencers from the White House on down. The Plague looks like it inevitably is going to fall down the rabbit hole of standard horror tropes at any moment, but this movie is smarter than that and always keeps it credible, tough as it is to watch. Casting director Rebecca Dealy's cast largely is made up of first-time film actors who are 12 or 13 themselves. Notably this is an exceptional debut for Rasmussen and Martin, neither having ever made a film but completely natural here, as is Blunck, who is haunting as Ben. Polinger knows just how to get an authentic performance out of each of these kids, plus he has added some almost surreal visual touches such as synchronized dancing scenes in the pool that add a layer of eerieness to the proceedings. Producers in addition to Edgerton are Lizzie Shapiro, Lucy McKendrick, Steven Schneider, Roy Lee and Derek Dauchy. Title: The PlagueFestival: Cannes (Un Certain Regard)Sales agents: UTA/Cinetic (domestic) , AGC (international)Director-screenwriter: Charlie PolingerCast: Everett Blonck, Kenny Rasmussen, Kayo Martin, Joel Edgerton, Lucas Adler, Caden Burris, Elliott Heffernan, Nicolas, Rasovan, Lennox Espy, Kolton LeeRunning time: 1 hr 39 min Best of Deadline Everything We Know About Ari Aster's 'Eddington' So Far All The Songs In Netflix's 'Forever': From Tyler The Creator To SZA Everything We Know About The 'Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping' Movie So Far
