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Everyone put your hands in your pants and grab your privates gently, yet firmly, as I say some of the magick words of horror: CLIVE BARKER. If you aren’t hard or wet just from that, then we may need to revoke your horror fan membership card. Poseur. Barker is listed as one of the five or six producers on the direct to DVD release, but I don’t think he did much else besides lend his name to it. Had he been truly involved, this movie wouldn’t have sucked. And believe me, kids, it sucks.
All the children in the world under the age of nine have fallen into a coma. It isn’t a peaceful kind of coma either. They all have violent seizures, simultaneously, twice a day. The reason for this malady is unknown. High schools serve as hospitals. Playgrounds lie in ruin. The human race seems doomed for lack of procreation.
Flash forward ten years and Tom Russel (James “Ah don’t want yer lahf” Van Der Beek) has gotten out of prison. He’s come home to make things right with his family, particularly his ex-wife, Jean (Ivana Milicevic). Tom killed a man in a bar fight a few years back, but a few years in a PMITA Federal prison will calm a man down quite a bit. He stops in to see David (Arne MacPherson), his father-in-law. David’s son is one of those stricken, and David has done nothing but take care of his comatose young’un for the last ten years. However, the kid’s seizures are getting stronger and it’s getting harder to hold him down.
Jean, of course, wants nothing to do with Tom. Jean’s brother, Sam (Brad Hunt), tends to run on the wild side, and he’s cool with Tom being back around. They don’t head out to the strip club or get together for a friendly game of Texas Hold ‘em, but they’re okay with each other. This is a good thing, because soon after their chance meeting in the street, all the children wake up.
They’re ten years older now, and they’ve grown up under the influence of whatever curse they’ve been under. And they’re very angry. Their disposition has changed. In fact, the night nurse who discovers the great awakening pays for it with her very life.
David’s boy wakes up too, and promptly bashes David’s skull in with an alarm clock. Tom, Jean and Sam are the only ones who can save their town from the pissed-off zombie-like teenagers.
So there’s a lot of running, a lot of teens in white-face and too much kohl and angry posturing by Van Der Beek, who plays his part like the embodiment of a mid-80’s Springsteen album, all tough and quiet, barely moving his lower jaw when he speaks.
The kids aren’t zombies but they aren’t ragers, either. They all act is if they just came down off a crazed Red Bull binge, moping about in hospital gowns, sullenly tearing people apart. They function as parodies of the emo generation. All that’s missing is one of the kids wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt.
Every chance the filmmakers had to make this a good movie was skipped over, every opportunity missed, like the fat kid at the high school dance that no girl will talk to, because they don’t realize he has an incredibly massive cock. But enough about me. Back to the movie. This could have been a bloody little flick, but it isn’t. This could have been the source of great social commentary about the alienation of today’s teenager. It isn’t. This could have had some great scary moments, particularly when the action is centered in the hospital. It doesn’t.
The worst part about the movie is it takes itself so fucking seriously. You can’t even laugh about how bad it is. No tongue, no cheek. There’s no sense of humor to this movie at all. Why you would make a horror movie so dry and serious it’s like listening to Ben Stein give a speech to the National Arbor Day Foundation is beyond me.
The Plague is no fun. Not a bit of fun at all.
Of course, since Barker’s name is on it, the creators decided to throw in some religious overtones, but here’s the difference. See, Barker is a master. When he does that, it has meaning. He does it for a reason. In The Plague, it makes no sense whatsoever, leaving the end of this movie a giant hole of suck.
On the good side, it is only 82 minutes long and Dee Wallace-Stone is in it for about three minutes. And, well, that’s the good side right there.
The Plague just flat out sucks. It’s boring. The Boy fell asleep during it, and I have a feeling most readers will too. Don’t be fooled by the magick words on the cover. You’ll be flaccid and dry within the first fifteen minutes of this pretentious butt-nugget.
