The Plague

This movie started really well and, as others noticed in their comments, ended rather obscurely. One could say that if you mix Children of the Damned with Night of the Living Dead, you get this movie, which would have made a reasonably scary and interesting film. However, they added a bit of Steinbeck leftism, a bit of obscure clerical writings, probably Catholic only, and crashed into an uninteresting and meaningless ending.

That doesn't mean it wasn't good. The start has that nice feel of Night of the Living Dead (the black and white version, the good one). The characters are presented and developed rather well. However, after a while, they all start dying stupidly and only show that using emotions in time of crisis is plain idiotic. After all, this is the only moral in this movie.

Bottom line: a film with a great potential turns out to be an average movie.

Have you ever wondered what you would get if you mixed "Village/Chilren of the Damned", "Night of the living Dead", the episode of "Miri" from "Star Trek", "Invasion of the Body Snathcers" (1978 version)and "Children of the Corn?....Me neither...but thats what you get with "The Plague" only those movies and TV show episode were good....this isn't....The Children of the world who are all under 9 years old fall into a comatose condition as well as any children born for the next 10 years. The ten years pass and now they awake and go on a bloody rampage. The movie began in what I found to be a slow creepy fashion which was OK....but the problem is how it unfolds after that. A majority of characters start appearing with no backup story which the script suggests we are suppose to be familiar with and care about.....Case in point is poor Dee Wallace who is in about three scenes of which take all about 5 minutes in total....She pops outta no where as the local sheriff's wife and the rest left me thinking what was the point.....Others are the two strange teens who walk with the comatose un spooked....A priest....Whose entrance was stolen right out of "The Excorsist Poster AD" you'll see what I mean.....This horror film turns into a schmorgasborg of a script and is not able to hide the fact that it did not introduce us correctly to characters and doesn't even explain a few details that would help the viewer understand some things. One of these is the two strange teens who break into houses to talk to the kids and who walk with them unoticed...Why they do this and there part in it is never explained..again what was the point...The reason behind so called "Plague" is not explained and an attempt by two characters at a so called debate as to the possible reasons behind why this could be happening right before they are attacked, was poorly executed and again pointless. James Van Der Beek is fine as the lead but cant even save this bad flick and looks like he realized mid way that he was in a turkey. The lead actress is not up to par and looks strangely similar at times to "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman's" Louise Lasser...that was scary...about the only thing I found. Again, a good idea with a bad execution which seems to be the norm these days with horror films. I was looking forward to seeing this flick since reading about the plot line and sadly I was disappointed at the actual product. I got the feeling there was a good story trying to find its way to the surface but sank like a ton of bricks at the hands of the people making it. I am surprised Clive Barker didn't go by way of "Alan Smithee" and had his name attached to this film. One good thing...this was a whole lot better than the atrocity known as the remake of "The Fog"...then again in comparison, anything is....Ouch!!

Advertising for this film seems to mention Clive Barker's name quite a bit which was enough to intrigue me - after all, who can't love the guy who created HELLRAISER and who was responsible for some of the strongest horror writing in the 1980s? Sadly it turns out that Barker was only a producer here and had no hand in the writing or anything.

And THE PLAGUE suffers as a result. The title and premise makes it sound like some kind of post-apocalyptic movie but instead it turns out to be nothing more than a low-budget zombie outing with some decidedly dodgy writing. Indeed, the writers never seem to really figure out what makes their antagonists tick and the addition of a religious edge to the narrative is very tiresome. It particularly falls apart at the head-scratching climax, which will have you groaning and shaking your head at the same time.

Up until that point, it's B-movie business as usual, with the exceptionally wooden James Van Der Beek struggling to contend with a virus which has transformed all of the world's children into killers. The script is poor and the characters absolutely diabolical thanks to their stupidity. I found the women characters particularly dumb here, given to acting in idiotic ways which soon ends in their death; even poor Dee Wallace can do little with the role she's given. A handful of mildly tense siege bits and some gore isn't enough to lift THE PLAGUE from the B-movie doldrums, however.

This movie has an effectively mysterious and creepy opening, but the script writer obviously had no idea where to go with it.

The plague's effects on young children throughout the world is an interesting premise. Simultaneously, kids everywhere lapse into a clinically unexplainable coma. The movie seems like a well-mixed concoction of elements from "Village of the Dead," "Night of the Living Dead," "Children of the Corn," and others. After ten years of nightly seizures and under constant care during their long sleep, the mass coma ends as mysteriously as it had begun. The reawakened coma victims are now blood thirsty and violent teenagers, seeking out victims like a vengeful mob. They are not slow, clumsy automatons like typical zombies, and are very capable at using weapons, making them quite formidable and deadly.

Clearly, there must be some impetus for the coma and its violent aftermath, but neither the reason for the spontaneous coma nor the party responsible are ever revealed. There is a wafer-thin spiritual context offered, but even this is woefully poor in development or purpose. The movie is just a fight for survival sequence with lots of bodies and a predictable outcome.

Very disappointing ending makes the whole thing pointless. Don't bother with this one.

In the not to distant future, every human child under age nine mysteriously falls into a coma. Most of the kids are hospitalized, but a few are cared for at home. Twice a day, they have convulsions (which seems to give their bodies a good workout). "The Plague" extends to newborns, also; all are born comatose. As years pass, no healthy babies are born. Births are discouraged, and abortions are mandatory. The victims remain comatose. With no functioning offspring, the human race is threatened with extinction.

This is a reasonably well set-up, but ultimately pointless, confusing, and unsatisfactory story. It's like "Village of the Damned" and "Night of the Living Dead" were copulated, and gave birth to a script. Then, they tried to film it as "The Grapes of Wrath" with James Van Der Beek (as Tom Russell) taking on the protagonist's role and Ivana Milicevic (as Jean Raynor) wanting to take over. The best thing you can say about the ending is that because it's so bad, any subversive message will go right over your head.

**** The Plague (9/5/06) Hal Masonberg ~ James Van Der Beek, Ivana Milicevic, Brad Hunt, Joshua Close