There are all sorts of ways to depict teenagers being awful to each other on film. In most of those ways, it’s teenage girls being awful to other teenage girls. While boys are prone to physical violence, girls are prone to emotional violence, which we know is much worse. However, boys can be just as insidious on that front, at least according to Charlie Polinger’s new film The Plague. So insidious, in fact, that your very skin may break out in a rash as a result.

The plague of the title is the imaginary disease feared by a group of boys at a summer water polo camp. At least, you’d think it would be imaginary, a way for a certain cohort to gang up on the one they’ve decided is persona non grata that particular week. These boys are around 13, so they should be a bit more creative than to accuse each other of having “cooties” – but then again, this was 2003, so maybe they hadn’t yet perfected the weapons of cruelty they might wield today.

Ben (Everett Blunck) is initially in good with the majority, led by Jake (Kayo Martin), who’s among the more laid back bullies you’re like to see. Their initial target is Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), the kid who’s different but doesn’t seem to care about that fact – though not in the sort of way that might impress them. When they cut loose after hours to some amped up music – it’s Moby’s “Feeling So Real,” because yes, this was 2003 – Eli is willing to let the spirit possess him, and moves his body in exactly the way he wants, to channel his adrenaline. Of course, being indifferent to what other people think of you – being “weird” – is the recipe for endless mockery, or worse, straight-up avoidance. The plague is passed by physical contact, you see.

Ben does have sympathy for Eli, and doesn’t seem concerned about the angry red rash that is consuming Eli’s back – because of course it’s not a real plague, right? So he offers to apply cream to the infected area, which Eli can’t properly reach, and word of it gets out. And Ben also begins showing manifestations of ill physical health, to accompany the rapidly increasing mental health issues of being shunned by his fellow campers.

In amongst all this is a surprise face: Joel Edgerton, playing a camp counsellor with the unusual name of Daddy Wags. Less surprisingly, Edgerton is a producer on The Plague, having first wanted to direct the film when Polinger brought him the script. Instead Edgerton helped it get made, as he continues to show his keen eye for identifying talent – talent that was honoured with an 11-minute standing ovation when the film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of last year’s Cannes Fim Festival.

And Polinger announces his talents from the very start. Via director of photography Steven Breckon, Polinger has an incredible eye for shooting water. Although a film about mob mentality bullying could really exist in any environment, there’s something unnerving about the antiseptic environment of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, with its dreamy wavering and its everpresent potential for drowning. The Plague features any number of underwater shots of bodies plunging through the surface, almost in unison, some feet first, some head first, travelling at different depths and trajectories. There’s a certain magic to these scenes, and a more definite form of magic during a sequence where a group of girls, engaged in ballet rather than polo, are seen twirling in slow motion, their bodies actually elevated above the surface.

With its emphasis on shower scenes and group cruelty, The Plague at times resembles a male version of Carrie – whose 2013 remake also had many scenes set in a pool, this time during water volleyball training. There aren’t any clairvoyants here, but there are plenty of psyches shattering and bodies potentially coming to harm. The Plague finds itself in the midst of a recent renaissance of body horror films with additional thematic resonance, though it probably only carries a superficial similarity to a movie like The Substance.

Key to the mood the movie sets is the performance of Everett Blunck in the lead role. A harried character erupting in fury can be scary, but even scarier can be when that character goes perfectly still, with only an intense stare decorating his face. Blunck is equal to this task, just as Vincent d’Onofrio was in Full Metal Jacket — which Polinger has cited as an influence. Rasmussen adds some of this as well, as both go through versions of the same experience.

The Plague may not reach the horrifying climaxes of the films that inspired it, though to say definitively where it concludes would spoil the fun. Let’s just say that this is a nasty little treat oozing with compelling technique, not to mention body sores. And the one person in the cast you’ll recognise? He isn’t even really essential. Showing his good taste, Joel Edgerton just wants to be a part of something this good.

 

The Plague opens today in Australian cinemas.