The Plague (2006)

Thanks for the memories!

One of my all time favorites.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

In response to mentalcritic's statement: "No explanation is ever offered for why these now-adolescent characters have the urge to eat the living things around them, leave alone how they would have sufficient muscle to stand under their own power after having been comatose and convulsive for ten years."An explanation for how they would have sufficient muscle is offered in a deleted scene, actually an expanded version of the scene where David feeds his comatose son Eric and talks to his brother Tom. David explains how twice a day the children's bodies go into convulsions. Far from weakening them, he explains, this strengthens and builds up their muscles.Rarely does deleted material give me the feeling it really shouldn't have been deleted, but this is one example.

Every child under the age of nine has fallen asleep and won't wake up. Until now.Starring James Van Der Beek and Ivana Milicevik.Written by Hal Masonberg and Teal Minton. A production by Clive Barker's Midnight Picture Show.Directed by Hal Masonberg.This started off so well and grabbed my interest from the first second but after about half an hour it just turned into another zombie flick.How many times can you watch a zombie invasion movie? The acting is average. The plot has been done (ironically) to death and the production is okay. But what could have been something amazing and original became boring. Plenty of blood, gore and scares but sadly a lack of anything original or entertaining. The ending was unusual and unconvincing.6/10

All across the world every child under the age of 9 is suddenly hit with a plague that sends them into a coma. They stay comatose for 10 years and then they all wake up at once. And they begin to kill all of the adults they see. Nobody knows the reason that only children under 9 are affected. Neither does anyone know why they have become like murderous zombies. All people know is that the only way to stop them from killing is to kill them first. Anyway, so much for the plot. As far as the movie itself was concerned, it had some good points and it had some bad points. First, I thought it was well directed, the acting was okay and it managed to maintain my interest from start to finish. On the other hand, there were quite a few questions left unanswered which really lowered the film's overall value. For example, it doesn't explain where the plague came from nor why the children suddenly woke up and started killing people. Likewise, the ending was equally puzzling. That said, regardless of whether explanations were deliberately omitted or not, it really caused the film to suffer. In short, this movie could have been much better if it made sense. But parts of it didn't and because of that I only give this film an average rating.

A mysterious plague has kept the world's children in a collective coma for the last decade. Now the kids have awakened with a common purpose: the total annihilation of the adult human race.Clive Barker's The Plague is one of those films that leaves the viewer struggling to make sense of what they have seen: although the makers clearly intended their movie to have some kind of higher meaning beyond 'the world's children wake from a ten year coma and become killer zombies', the direction, script or editing (or possibly any combination thereof) is so clumsy that it's virtually impossible to come to any satisfying conclusion.My guess is that the children were sent by 'God' to cleanse the world by taking the souls of adults—to wipe the slate clean, so to speak—but even this explanation leaves me with too many unanswered questions: why is it only 9s and under that are affected? Why don't the children attack the 19-year-old couple? If the plague was sent by a higher power to rid the planet of sin, why would the children kill people who have selflessly devoted ten years of their life to look after them? After such a long time spent in a coma, how come the kids' muscles hadn't seized up or wasted away?It's not all bad news, however: the film is admittedly very creepy at times, with enough excellent edge-of-the-seat set pieces, effective jump scares and atmosphere to ensure that it is never boring, but with a narrative that is so difficult to decipher, it ultimately proves to be an unsatisfying experience overall.4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the zombie style attacks by the children.