{"id":125981,"date":"2025-11-10T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/125981\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:40:09","slug":"adolescence-is-hell-and-so-is-summer-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/125981\/","title":{"rendered":"Adolescence Is Hell, and So Is Summer Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adolescence, and especially at an all-boys summer water polo camp, is hell in Charlie Polinger\u2019s memorably disturbing first feature, \u201cThe Plague<\/a>.\u201d In the psychodrama-meets-body-horror movie, Ben (discovery Everett Blunck), a socially anxious 12-year-old, becomes part of a ritualistic tradition that targets an outcast among them with an illness they call \u201cthe plague<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

But as there are real corporeal implications, it\u2019s starting to look as if this imagined social disease might be real. Is the plague in this acne-scarred nightmare an even more horrifying version of puberty? \u201cThe Plague\u201d almost feels like an allegory for it, but it\u2019s never predictable. Below, IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer ahead of the film<\/a>\u2018s upcoming debut on December 24.<\/p>\n

\"Sirât\"<\/a> \"The<\/a> <\/p>\n

Joel Edgerton also stars in the film as the boys\u2019 coach, who turns out to be extremely out of his depth when faced with the cruelties they inflict upon each other. \u201cThe Plague\u201d first premiered<\/a> at the Cannes Film Festival, where IndieWire spoke to writer\/director Polinger about shooting the film on 35mm during a sweltering summer season. \u201cWe were capturing something that felt timeless and, to me, there\u2019s no comparison. It looks so great to shoot on film, and these kids\u2019 faces and closeups just rendered in such a beautiful way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That shot-on-film aspect lends to the film feeling like a throwback to classic coming-of-age movies, but with a chilling twist. \u201cI love those movies about boys, though I often feel like a lot of movies about young boys are either a little more sort of bro-y hangout or a little more nostalgic, kind of biking-around-the-suburbs type of thing,\u201d he said. Movies like Bo Burnham\u2019s \u201cEighth Grade\u201d and Julia Ducournau\u2019s \u201cRaw,\u201d he said, \u201ccapture a social dread and vulnerability of your body and something you don\u2019t see as much with boys because it requires a certain vulnerability to be an object of terror in that way\u2026 I was even looking at some sort of dread-filled, \u2018Shining\u2019 daylight kinds of horror movies, [with] huge imposing spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

From IndieWire\u2019s review out of Cannes<\/a>: \u201cIn his debut feature, filmmaker Charlie Polinger plays with broad riffs on coming-of-age, body horror, and bullying genres before paring these themes back to reveal that two 12-year-old boys \u2014 and their contrasting approaches to being different \u2014 are really the heartfelt preoccupation of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Independent Film Company opens \u201cThe Plague\u201d in select theaters on Wednesday, December 24 with an expansion to follow on Friday, January 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adolescence, and especially at an all-boys summer water polo camp, is hell in Charlie Polinger\u2019s memorably disturbing first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,878,85,46,397,79608,29582],"class_list":{"0":"post-125981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-film","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-the-plague","14":"tag-trailers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}