[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Children as “zombies”? How terrifying. Do we get to see a bunch of children killed?? That’d be awesome.
LIMERICK REVIEW:
A Clive Barker zombie movie where every zombie is a kid.
Turned out not to be the greatest horror movie bid.
The movie’s title was The Plague.
Let’s try the writer at The Hague.
The value of this film isn’t even a few quid.
HAIKU REVIEW: A failed horror film:
Zombie kids should be scary.
Too ambiguous.
PEOPLE: James Van Der Beek, who I haven’t seen in a movie since the *incredible* Rules Of Attraction. Ivana Milicevic (Paycheck, Jerry Maguire). Brad Hunt. Joshua Close. John P. Connolly (someone else who looks familiar, but I don’t know why — his IMDB has nothing I’d know). Brittany Scobie (who I’d like to see more of). Mostly nobodies.
QUIRKS: Zombies that are kids. On the same day, all kids under the age of 9.000 fell into a coma. With synchronized seizures and everything. New births were born comatose. Ten years later, all of the age 0 to 19.000 year olds wake up and wreak havoc on society.
BAD STUFF: And then what? Where’s the action? Where’s the conclusion? The conclusion makes no sense. They read this page a preacher wrote about his dream at least three times in the movie, but it doesn’t drive the point home. The point is completely missed. Who did this? What was the coma? What are the kids? What’s with the soul absorption? What’s with the conclusion? Did she die? Were the zombies placated? Are they still evil?
Expect no answers… To anything!
CONCLUSION: IMDB: 5/10. Netflix: 3/5 stars. And that’s only because we were entertained during a lot of the movie. Overall, it left us pretty unsatisfied.
The best part were the two “19.001 year old” characters. Born on the cusp of the coma-age, the zombie children thought they were young, and therefore zombies as well. Especially the girl. She was kind of an emo, so the zombies thought her one of them. They were probably the most interesting characters… But in the end, their uniqueness did not serve to advance the plot AT ALL.
The movie was interesting. Then it left you completely unsatisfied. You almost feel tricked, because you were interested for such a long period of time, without receiving any proper answers. I hate movies that make me feel like this. (No Country For Old Men was one of them… But this one is far more unsatisfying of an ending.)
Also: This had WAY less gore and action than one should expect from ANY zombie movie.
RECOMMENDATION: Skip it, unless you’re a zombie or Clive Barker completist!
SIMILAR MOVIES: Most zombie movies.
Mood: moodlessness
Music: Kreator – Take Their Lives
Claire's blog 
January 21, 2010 at 11:48 AM
[…] • Broken, The (2008) – great for anyone who likes Mirrors. What a twist! • Clive Barker’s The Plague (2006) – I already hated kids before seeing this. Kids as zombies suck! • Donkey Punch […]
February 28, 2010 at 10:43 PM
Y’know… I think I saw this. Probably because Barker’s name was attached to it.
I vaguely remember the plot, but have no memory at all of resolution.
Guess I know why now… :)
March 1, 2010 at 8:38 AM
Hehe yea. That would explain it :)
March 6, 2010 at 12:57 PM
Yeah, hubby and I watched this thinking it would be scary. After all, it has Clive Barker’s name on it. We were disappointed. It was too long without enough suspense.
July 23, 2012 at 1:31 PM
I just watched the film and wasn’t really satisfied by it either. To be frank – after the Hellraiser films and The Book Of Blood I expected more from Clive Barker. The so-called superhuman strength of the zombie(?) children wasn’t that apparent most of the time as they were quite easily defeated, even the 18-19 year old guys. A bump on the head and down they went. I’ve never read John Steinbecks novel The Grapes Of Wrath so I don’t know what significance it holds with this movie. On the net it says Steinbeck’s novel is about an Oklahoma family moving to California during the Great Depression in order to make a better life and have a better future. Perhaps that’s what this not so horrifying horror film is about… creating a “better world, a better future”. Uncorrupted young children who fall into a coma for ten years only to awake collectively when they’re old and strong enough to take on the world’s adult population and, by murdering them, “cleanse” the planet of all these messed up, selfish adults responsible for all the problems in this world. Leaving a completely new race, a purified new young world population to “start over”. Of course, the story, while interesting is still full of holes. WHO caused it? God, who was fed up with His own creation? WHY did every adult have to die, regardless of their character and of their contribution towards society? HOW is the “new race” ever going to be able to survive, since evidently none of the kids have much knowledge of how anything works, and no scientists, engineers and doctors left to teach them? How did they even figure out how to fire a gun or destroy a car engine – the very oldest of them were barely nine years old when everything began? Who was the little child who acted as the leader for the zombie teens? WHERE did everyone disappear to while the woman had her eyes closed? Into thin air? And why? Did they let her live (because they realised she posed no threat to them) or did she realise she’d have to let them kill her too, since she was the last adult left… the way she looked at them at the end, she seemed to “understand”. My personal guess is, they let her live and over time, she eventually turned into a crazy old woman who lives in the woods, scaring all the little kids in the local area. After all, every village needs one, right?
July 25, 2012 at 10:52 AM
Exactly. SOOO many good questions you just posed. I had forgotten just how many questions this movie left unanswered!