Review of Black Death (2010) by James O — 24 Jul 2011

I found myself losing interest in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the movie, until a group of crusaders (The main characters in this movie) come across a small group of people in the forest readying themselves to burn a witch, that is when the movie started getting interesting.

This is not a fantasy story like Season Of The Witch which uses medieval times as its setting, this is a serious story that uses history to bring us a excellent fictional story. The time period is the early years of the Bubonic Plague, the Bubonic Plague has hit villages and hit them hard, however there is 1 village that is free of the devastation of the Bubonic Plague, and the church has declared that a Necromancer is the leader of that village, and this Necromancer is bringing the dead back to life. The Church has decreed a small group of Crusaders to bring this Necromancer back to the church for trial, and to restore Christianity to this village.

At first the British accents of a few characters bothered me, I strained to understand what was being said, but quickly I grew accustom to their accents and the problem was solved. The first skirmish in the movie was one of the best medieval fights I have ever seen, and while this was not your classic horror movie, the music was excellent as it added intensity to the movie. What I enjoyed about the music in this movie is that so many movies the music (at the time its playing) becomes the focus of the movie, and the movie itself is lost in the background, in Black Death the music was almost subliminal as the movie stayed the focus and the music was ambiance.

Sometimes horror movies can keep you entertained and then in the last 30 minutes the movie becomes silly, Black Death stayed excellent from start to end, it was beautifully done, the ending fit the movie and all your questions will be answered, nothing is left unexplained. Wonderful job by the director Christopher Smith, he deserves a lot of credit for directing this movie. Sean Bean was the most notable name in this movie and one of the two lead main characters, the acting in this movie was excellent, one thing you can say for British actors is that they are well trained.