I hate kids. I really do. They’re annoying, they’re loud, and very few of them are adorable. And “The Plague” perpetuates my sheer annoyance. All kidding aside, I’m probably one of the few who think “The Plague” is a pretty competent and entertaining quasi-zombie flick, and even though its faults are rather plentiful, I just enjoyed the tension of these ankle biters coming back from a ten year snooze to wreak pure havoc on anyone older than them. “The Plague,” which is not directed by Clive Barker, is a mix of “Village of the Damned,” “The Children of the Corn,” and “Night of the Living Dead,” teaming creepy children with an unexplained force driving them to be murderous unstoppable monsters.

What is The Plague? Why is this even called The Plague when the disease inflicted by the children can not be transferred to others? That's only a few of the questions I was left with. The list is almost a mile wide. And when a film sets up such a fascinating concept and gives us nothing in terms of mystery, answers, and or theories, you feel cheated. What’s controlling these kids? Are they zombies? Are they possessed? Are they being controlled by demons? Is it the disease? A brain defect? Aliens? What?

Romero’s films can get away without explaining much to us because his concept was simplistic, yet open to many possibilities, but this film presented a bunch of story elements, and plot devices and never bothered to explain what it is that happened to any of these people. Kids under eleven suddenly go into a coma, have seizures twice daily, and suddenly are ravaging creatures without much method to its madness. About the second half is when the film begins to completely fall apart with concepts introduced out of nowhere, the sudden revelation that the children are becoming smarter, thus relinquishing any hope of the characters surviving which then leads you to ask "What was the whole point?"

Team that with the stock score, the cliché lead hero who doesn't do much, sleepy acting, and a walk-on from Dee Wallace Stone that is utterly pointless, we're also given a deus ex machina climax that didn't give us the pay off we were looking for. You mean we have to buy that all of a sudden these kids would stop their violent behavior and revert back to normal? Oh kids and their violent tantrums. How cute. One minute they’re watching “Backyardigans” the next minute they’re gauging your eyes out.

The audience for this will surely be mixed. On the one hand, this is far from a perfect horror film with flaws by the barrel full, yet on the other hand I found it to be a tense and somewhat creepy quasi-zombie film that mixed enough elements to create a memorable straight-to-video creeper.

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