Review of Black Death (2010) by Jesse O — 25 Apr 2011

This movie was a pretty fantastic horror movie. Might actually be one of the best horror movie I've seen in YEARS. The movie does take a while to reach that point though, as before they reach the village, it's realistically all about the atmosphere of being in this place that's been ravaged by the black plague.

And the movie, visually, does make this pestilence look about as bleak as humanly possible, which was probably the right way to go considering that the plague killed MILLIONS of people. So visually the movie just gets the RIGHT tone down.

And possibly that tone is going to turn a lot of people off as there's really no ray of hope in this movie at all. And I blame the people for that, with a horror movie you just SHOULDN'T expect a happy tone.

And then people get upset because the movie doesn't have a happy ending. I just don't get it. Anyway, like I said, before they reach the village, it's all about atmosphere and when they reach the village, it's sort of like a Wicker Man type village.

It doesn't feel like a blatant rip-off as much as it pays tribute to it. And the movie also does enough on its own that it still feels like one of the more unique horror movies you'll see in this day and age.

There's actually also not that much gore in the movie, there's an action sequence where they fight forest bums or something and that scene is pretty violent. But it's also halfway through the movie.

And it's the really violent scene in the entire movie. So it's great to see a horror movie that just doesn't rely on the gore to tell an effective story. What I also liked about the movie is the fact that it also has a pretty intelligent discussions about faith and religion, what it really means and how far men will go for what they believe in.

It's actually pretty impressive. The cast is also great. Sean Bean is perfect for this kind of role and his last scene was of pretty epic proportions. Eddie Redmayne, a guy I had never heard of, was pretty damn great in this role, and just the way his character changes throughout the movie was impressive.

The rest of the cast is great too, but it really comes back to Sean and Eddie and they do a great job. So overall, this is a great movie. I HIGHLY recommend it. But of course, it's probably not going to do all that well.

Which is really unfortunate.