Beneath the Surface:"The Plague" Turns Summer Camp into a Chilling Mirror on Toxic Masculinity

Every queer person knows what it’s like, at least a little, to feel like the odd one out. Charlie Polinger’s “The Plague” doesn’t just remember that feeling—it bottles it, shakes it up, and lets it explode poolside at a boys-only water polo camp in the sticky summer of 2003. The result is a body horror-thriller that’s as much about rashes as it is about the social diseases that fester in adolescent locker rooms, where difference is dangerous and conformity is king .

Ben, 12, is the new kid—smart, shy, and desperate to fit in. He’s quickly schooled in the rules: don’t be weird, don’t stand out, and, above all, avoid Eli, the camper whose mysterious rash has made him the outcast, the “plague” to be feared and mocked. “The rules are clear: if Eli touches you, you have to shower immediately,” the film tells us, echoing the very real anxieties queer youth face about being deemed *contagious* or “other” .

If you’re reading this and feeling déjà vu, you’re not alone. The metaphor is hardly subtle—and it’s not supposed to be. For generations, LGBTQ+ people have been marked by difference, made scapegoats for what cishet culture fears most: fluidity, nonconformity, vulnerability. “The Plague” literalizes that stigma, turning Eli’s rash into a social death sentence. The taunts and ostracism he faces echo every “that’s so gay” slur, every shunning at gym class, every whispered rumor at school dances. The film’s horror is not just in the skin, but in the soul .

For Ben, the urge to belong clashes with a dawning empathy. He dares to befriend Eli, and soon finds himself marked—first with suspicion, then with the same rash. As his social standing crumbles, Ben is forced to confront the reality: sometimes kindness is punished, and sometimes the only thing more contagious than cruelty is compassion .

Polinger’s direction is as unflinching as it is atmospheric. The opening—slow-motion, underwater, boys plunging into chlorine-blue uncertainty—immediately signals that we’re not just in for a coming-of-age flick, but a psychological descent. Reviewers have praised the “unsettling atmosphere” and the way the film “puts us into Ben’s mindset as he tries to navigate his anxieties around being bullied” .

Composer Johan Lenox’s score, full of distorted vocals and surreal electronics, turns the pool into a cauldron of adolescent dread. Cinematographer Steven Breckon’s 35mm lens lingers on bruises, blemishes, and the subtle terror of being watched—or worse, ignored. It’s a horror film, yes, but the real monster is the everyday cruelty of boys policing each other’s masculinity, and the grown-ups (including a brilliantly ineffectual coach played by Joel Edgerton) who look the other way .

What makes “The Plague” hit especially hard for queer viewers is its refusal to offer easy answers. Is the rash real, or is the “plague” just a story that spreads because the boys need a scapegoat? Is Ben’s fate sealed by his empathy, or by the group’s need to maintain a pecking order? The film “leaves you to question,” says one reviewer, pointing to the way it “reflects the nastiness and insecurities of the middle school years” .

Polinger taps into the fever-dream logic of puberty: hormones run wild, hierarchies are enforced, and every difference risks becoming a target. Yet the film also finds moments of tenderness—the reckless joy of sneaking out, the thrill of a first crush (Ben’s longing glances at a girl in the artistic swimming camp are achingly innocent), and the precarious hope that maybe, just maybe, one summer can offer an escape .

In a media landscape where coming-of-age stories often default to the straight and narrow, “The Plague” stands out for its willingness to confront the roots of toxic masculinity—and the way it metastasizes through rumor, ritual, and rejection. For queer audiences, the film’s body horror is doubly resonant: it’s about being marked as different, about the terror and relief of finding someone who sees you, and about the risk of reaching out when you know it could cost you everything .

Perhaps the real “plague,” as Queerty wryly notes, isn’t the rash at all, but “toxic masculinity” itself—a force as invisible and insidious as any pathogen, and just as hard to cure . In a world still learning to name and dismantle those forces, “The Plague” is both a warning and a rallying cry: don’t let fear of difference become a pandemic.

So, next time you see a horror movie set at summer camp, ask yourself—what’s really lurking in the water? Sometimes it’s not the monsters you see, but the ones you make together.