BA_Harrison
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.
darth_paul-2
The one star out of ten that I do give goes to honor the wonderful Dee Wallace and even Van der Beeck and Milicevic produced quality performances.The worst thing about this film is the writing, the directing, the production, the plot, the hidden messages, Clive Barker's weakening ability to write horror, and all the rest! A veritable suckfest to be sure. I was so disgusted by the immense waste of time after watching this film that I felt compelled to go back online and write this review! There goes 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back.Again, the only worthwhile thing in this movie were Dee Wallace and the other main characters---absolutely nothing else!
rbrb
This ain't a bad movie of its kind and better than some reviews here suggest. A zombie/night of the living dead type of film. However it is ruined for me by watching it on the Asia cable channel AXN who at regular intervals break in with mindless adverts for other programs. The likes of HBO, Star Movies, Cinemax etc allow subscribers to see movies uninterrupted but AXN just spoil it for the viewer, and I turned it off after less than an hour as I could not enjoy the picture with all the commercial breaks. Also have noticed that the reception quality here in Asia of AXN is poor compared to the reception of the other cable TV movie channels.5/10
lastliberal
You have all probably seen this before. No, you have seen this before. If you have seen Village/Children of the Damned, there is no difference. A few hours vs. 10 years. Same thing.Once the children come out of their coma, then it is more 30 days of Night as they are zombified (not zombies as they never really died) and they start killing off everyone.The violence escalates as they learn to anticipate and use weapons.I thought James Van Der Beek did a fairly good job, and I also liked Ivana Milicevic. Tom definitely redeemed himself as everyone could certainly empathize with his actions that sent him to prison.
AD
