‘The Plague’: First-time director’s disturbing horror

Charlie Polinger achieves a lot with relatively little with his feature directorial debut, “The Plague.” Getting a wide release this week, this slice of psychological horror is quite effective despite its small scale and a cast consisting largely of little-known young actors. A cross between “Lord of the Flies” and ... some other movie set at a youth water polo camp, “The Plague” explores, as Polinger puts it in his directorial statement, “the clumsy liminal space between childhood and adolescence, when the id grows too fast and too strong for the conscience to keep up.”

Also the film’s writer, Polinger found inspiration for the story when he unearthed old journals from when he was 12. He read his tales of a youth sports camp, where boys told tall tales of a mysterious “plague” that had infected one unfortunate kid — it was the reason for his acne-covered face and was turning his brain to “mush.”

That is the situation 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck) encounters when he joins the second session of a water polo camp after moving to the area from another city in summer 2003. A bunch of the boys — led by the charismatic Jake (Kayo Martin) — have ostracized another with a skin issue, Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), which they make very clear as they accept Ben into their fold.

“Those aren’t regular pimples,” Jake tells Ben as they sit on the bottom part of a bunk bed, several feet from Eli. “Those are plague pimples. That’s a plague face.” Jake proceeds to fill Ben’s head with more disturbing details, including the fate of the unfortunate boy who supposedly gave the plague to Eli. (Spoiler alert: He’s said to be spending his time in a mental institution playing “Jenga.”)

You can tell from Ben’s face that he doesn’t believe any of this to be true — mostly, kinda, probably — but he does as instructed, scrubbing his skin quickly after any physical contact with the outcast. He’s just trying to fit in, especially after Jake gives him a hard time about having trouble pronouncing “t” sounds, earning him the cruel nickname “Soppy” as a result. We’ve all been there — if roughly, not precisely.

That’s why “The Plague” feels so authentic for its first long stretch: It’s relatable in a way you may not enjoy thinking about, even if you were more follower than leader, more Ben than Jake, in your youth. As the film progresses, however, Polinger skillfully blurs the line between childhood nonsense and reality in a really potent and, at times, downright chilling way, as Ben takes the inevitable turn away from Jake and toward Eli — despite the latter’s odd social behavior. (To be clear, Eli’s idiosyncrasies feel authentic for an outcast kid ... at least for the most part.)

With the help of collaborators who include director of photography Steven Breckon, production designer Chad Keith and sound designer Damian Volpe, Polinger creates an aesthetic that evolves from lovely (the opening underwater shots) to unsettling (well, you’ll see). Plenty of heavy lifting is also done by the aforementioned actors, with Blunck (“Griffin in Summer”) compelling as a preteen everyman — not exactly cool but able to vaguely fake it — and newcomer Rasmussen, who throws himself into the role of a boy trying to make the best of being separated from the group at camp.

The standout, though, is Martin, who, as the ringleader, straddles the line between angel and devil, aided by an often-present smile that can be read either way. (Also into skating and boxing, the youth has about a million Instagram followers.)

Joel Edgerton (“Boy Erased,” “Train Dreams”) portrays the only meaningful adult role, that of the boys’ coach, Daddy Wags, and he turns in solid work, both when his character lays into Jake for his behaviour and later tries to comfort Ben.