In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Ten years after a weird plague, a recently-released ex-con and his ex-wife find that the formerly comatose children afflicted with a strange plague have suddenly awakened and gone on a vicious killing streak across town, forcing them to find a way to survive.While it did have some problems, there were some good points with it. One of the best ones is that this one really gets a lot out of the initial stages of the plague and the reactions here, from their comatose appearance and the daily grind of their preparations for the seizures, carries quite an impactful tone here as at times, it's pretty suspenseful. When the plague is wearing off and all the chaos starts, this is golden as there's plenty to like about those scenes with the abandoned high-school trying to overcome the massive influx of kids running around the hallways and into the different rooms here with the fantastic action encounters in the laundry room and out in the hallways leading to the first escape attempt. They're creepy, unnerving and quite unpredictable whenever they'll appear out of nowhere as it does manage to provide some nice gore while the film has a really impressive body count. There's a large number of kills in here, including a fantastic-looking broken leg that comes out of nowhere and the after-effects of many victims are often found with missing flesh and blood splattering the location very heavily, making them all entertaining. These, though, are the only good factors about it while this here did have a few pretty major problems. The film's biggest problem is that the film makes no sense at all as there's nothing at all offered here as to why the plague started or what the intent was. The consequences that apply are brought up in this, but none of them are officially given as to why this was going on, as well as why that particular target was affected by this plague. None of these areas or issues are ever explained in here, and they make the film seem like a slapdash effort with nothing important about it and not really that well thought-out. There's also a big explanation problem with the ending as this one simply ends with one of the most confusing moves possible. There's no way this is taken any way other than confusion, and this is one of the most upsetting aspects of the film. There are several other areas in here that don't work. The fact that this is simply a zombie movie without the fact that they're actually called zombies in the film. This has all the trappings of a zombie film through and through, with the same type of clichés that these films offer, as giving this as a zombie threat and made more sense. The last big problem was that the plot line about the two teens being mistaken for the children doesn't really come off that well. As it's a major plot-point, this really needed some big payoff to make it work and instead, it's a really weak one that doesn't serve the film any purpose other than to add to the body count. This here really had some big problems with it.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

* Acting is generally weak, meaning: wooden. * There's really no explanation as to: what happened to the children in the first place; what did this to them; why they've become homicidal maniacs; what's controlling them? At the end, it does attempt some kind of "our-kids-are-what-we-make-of-them" gibberish. * There's something from a Minister's journal which is supposed to elucidate -- but, doesn't, really. Something about giving your "fear" to the Children . . . or, yeah, like, whatever . . . * Some blond-haired kid shows up at the end, seemingly a ringleader or something. Who is he? What's his importance? Why does the camera focus on just him? Why is he the one with _The Grapes of Wrath_ book in his pocket? Don't know. * Apparently, if you create happy thoughts, the kids won't kill you.I've suffered so as to tell you: This movie's not worth your time.

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 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