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DVD review: The Plague
By Nicholas Dewart
dewart@mscd.edu

The Plague Rated R 88 minutes

Clive Barker’s The Plague attempts to infuse the traditional zombie flick with depth and intrigue.

Unfortunately, its nonsensical plotline and clichéd performances are about as dynamic and engaging as the film’s lumbering, brain-hungry zombies.

The Plague is frustrating because writers Hal Masonberg and Teal Minton are unable to develop the plot, never fully explaining who or what the film is about. Their story of a horde of undead children wreaking revenge on a hapless group of adults never finds its center or its appeal.

As a producer, Barker makes an effort to distinguish his zombie flick from the rest, but the result is often muddled and incomprehensible.

The film opens with a father discovering his son foaming at the mouth from what looks like a seizure. After rushing to the hospital, the father finds that the rest of the town’s children share his son’s sickness. An impeccably timed newscast serves as ham-handed exposition.

The mysterious sickness leaves the children comatose, but 10 years later they awake from their slumber as zombies. The children go on a killing rampage, targeting parents, teachers and other authority figures, and for the rest of the film the adults fight for survival in a plague-torn world.

James Van Der Beek (Dawson Creek) plays Tom Russell, the film’s protagonist and child-zombie slayer. But it takes more than good looks to create compelling chemistry, and zero sparks fly between Tom and his ex-wife Jean, played by Ivana Milicevic (Vanilla Sky).

Ultimately, the film’s sole appeal rests in its unabashed cheesiness, evidenced by an exchange between survivors scrapping for food:

“What do you got there?” one man asks.

“Body of Christ,” the other man replies. He tosses a box of Holy Communion wafers to the other man and asks, “Do you want some?”

With an ending that does nothing to resolve the plot, The Plague leaves its viewers frustrated. Enjoy it for its B-movie campiness or not at all.