“Why are you doing this to me?”
That’s not a question. It’s a surrender. And hearing it’s the first line of The Plague‘s synopsis tells you everything about where this film lives — in that awful space between knowing you’re being destroyed and being powerless to stop it.
I’ve been tracking this one since Cannes. Critics there used words like “haunting” and “proper filmmaking firing on all cylinders” (yes, that’s the pull-quote they’re using). But what grabbed me wasn’t the praise. It was how they talked about the kids. Not as child actors delivering lines, but as something closer to feral energy caught on camera. Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen — names you don’t know yet. Give it six months.
Charlie Polinger’s feature debut hit the 2025 Cannes Film Festival like one of those films nobody expects until suddenly everyone’s talking about it. IFC snatched it up. Smart move. This isn’t franchise material. It’s the kind of film that makes parents uncomfortable at holiday dinners.
The Cruelty Is the Point
Based on the synopsis and trailer description, there’s no monster here. No supernatural twist waiting in act three. Just a water polo camp, a bunch of boys, and something they call “The Plague” — a made-up illness they use to destroy whoever’s weakest.
Think about that for a second. Kids inventing a disease to justify their cruelty. In 2025. After everything we’ve lived through. That’s… yeah.
Joel Edgerton plays the coach, and the casting alone tells you this won’t be simple. Edgerton doesn’t do straightforward authority figures. He does men who think they’re helping while everything burns around them. Men who see everything and do nothing. Or worse — men who don’t see at all. From the trailer’s description, you can’t tell which version we’re getting. That’s probably intentional.
The film doesn’t lean on genre tricks. No jump scares mentioned, no horror mechanics. Just that slow-burn dread that comes from recognizing something you’ve lived through. Or done. Or watched happen while you stayed quiet.
Why December 24th Makes Perfect Sense
IFC is dropping this in select theaters on Christmas Eve. Expanding January 2nd.
That’s not random. That’s surgical.
While families are watching whatever Disney’s selling, while multiplexes are drowning in IP sequels, The Plague slips in as the alternative. The film for people who want their holidays with a side of existential unease. Counter-programming at its finest — though calling a film about childhood cruelty “counter-programming” to Christmas feels almost too on the nose.
The producers — Derek Dauchy, Roy Lee, Lucy McKendrick, Steven Schneider, Lizzie Shapiro — are an interesting mix. Lee and Schneider have horror credentials (The Ring, Paranormal Activity), but they’re not making horror here. They’re making something that uses horror’s grammar to talk about actual damage. The kind that doesn’t need special effects.
This Is Going to Hurt
I keep coming back to that invented illness. “The Plague.”
When I was twelve, kids at my school decided someone had “the gay touch.” Same mechanism. Different generation. Different name. Same damage.
That’s what Polinger seems to understand — the names change, but the machinery doesn’t. Boys creating hierarchies. Adults watching. Everyone pretending it’s just kids being kids until someone breaks. And sometimes even after.
The Cannes reviews talked about the score, the cinematography, those young performances. Technical excellence, sure. But technique isn’t why this trailer’s description alone makes me uncomfortable. It’s because somewhere, right now, in some camp or school or team, this exact thing is happening. Different name. Same plague.
Water polo is perfect, by the way. All that organized violence underwater where refs can’t see. All that chlorine that makes everyone’s eyes red anyway, so who can tell who’s been crying?
The Quiet Ones Hit Hardest
Festival debuts are tricky. Cannes especially. Films either arrive fully formed or they don’t. This one did. A debut feature getting this response isn’t unheard of, but it’s rare enough that people pay attention. Polinger was apparently a shorts filmmaker before this. The jump from shorts to features breaks a lot of directors. Not here.
I haven’t seen the full film yet — just working from the trailer and synopsis that dropped today. But everything about how IFC is positioning this, from the December release to the measured expansion, suggests they know they have something that’ll spread through word-of-mouth. The kind of film people need to process before they recommend it. Or warn against it.
The title works on multiple levels, obviously. The fake illness. The way cruelty spreads. The infection of complicity. But also — and this is just me reading between lines — the way certain films spread through culture. Starting small. Building. Becoming unavoidable.
What This Film Is Really About
Childhood cruelty as system, not accident. This isn’t bullying as individual pathology. It’s infrastructure.
The myth of adult protection. Edgerton’s coach represents every authority figure who should’ve stopped something but didn’t.
How boys destroy each other with permission. That “cruel tradition” line from the synopsis isn’t about tradition. It’s about authorization.
Why we need different stories now. After decades of superhero salvation fantasies, here’s a film about ordinary damage and no rescue coming.
The violence of being twelve. That specific age where you’re old enough to inflict real harm but young enough that adults dismiss it as “kids stuff.”
FAQ
Is The Plague actually trying to be a horror film?
No. It’s using psychological thriller mechanics to examine actual childhood trauma. The horror isn’t supernatural — it’s behavioral and systemic. Way scarier, honestly.
Why should the Cannes premiere matter to regular audiences?
Because Cannes doesn’t usually embrace debut films unless they’re exceptional. This isn’t festival fodder that’ll disappear — it’s a film that earned immediate distribution and December release positioning.
What makes this different from other bullying films?
The focus on collective cruelty as tradition rather than individual villain narratives. Plus that invented illness concept — weaponizing hypochondria and contamination fears — feels disturbingly contemporary.
Is this going to be too intense for younger viewers?
Based on the description, this sounds like it’ll earn its viewers the hard way. It’s about kids but probably not for them. That Christmas release date feels like a warning.
