A Filmmaker's Review: "Black Death" (2010)

“Black Death” (2010) was a film I initially watched because I saw that it starred Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne. Two great actors in a period drama (one of my favourite genres) and that is a recipe for greatness. I put it on and began watching it at about 8pm. Now, given the fact that I sleep for a four hour intermission between midnight and four in the morning, I was way off my bedtime. So, how did I fall asleep in the middle of the movie without actually realising it? Let’s have a look, shall we?

First of all, the film doesn’t really create great atmosphere. The whole monastery scenery didn’t really match the way in which we see the town that it is in. There’s a huge ass monastery in the middle of this tiny market town. I thought, ‘alright, I’m not going to focus on it…’ and then someone opened their mouth and I was sure that the cliché speech and dialogue was a point of trying to write something that sounded authentically 14th century in the mind of the writer. It didn’t work. I can’t believe that they actually got Sean Bean to say some of the shit in his script. It sounded awful.

At the point that they fight the people in the forest and the girl’s bloodied clothing is found by Eddie Redmayne, I fell asleep. No, I didn’t miss the squelching blood cuts of the fight they have with another team of people and the blood-curdling screams of death from the other side. But I did find it again, very cliché. It was one of those fights where if you really wanted to see something like that which wasn’t cliché, you should probably just watch “Lord of the Rings” and see the actual cool fight scenes that immerse you and have some part in the storyline instead of being shoehorned in because the writer knew the story was boring as shit.

Wait for it…Necromancer.

Yes, you heard it correctly. There’s a necromancer in the storyline and then, Eddie Redmayne - the only religious character ordained in the group, has to have the word explained to him. If anything, he is the one who should know what that means. Anyways, when they get to this town, there are some real cliché ‘Oh my god, nobody is dying from the plague here, they have abandoned God that’s why…’ vibes. I felt my soul sinking by this point because I just knew there would be some weird magical shite happening afterwards. Then, Lo and Behold, a resurrection because it takes the piss out of Mr. Christ apparently. Not gonna lie, I am not sure how the resurrection scene didn’t have the monk scratching his head instead of just believing all the random shite he saw. You thought he would want to process it. It just seemed really quickly and well, afterwards you just know he’s going to regret what he did - again, spoilers are not going to be told here.

All in all, even though this film tried very hard to be a genre-based production of wannabe period horror movie, it failed in its convoluted storyline and major plot holes. There is a massive problem with the writing and really, I didn’t have much time to listen to the weird speeches of ‘we are here for God…’ even though I’m religious, it seemed cliché and pretty much terrible. After this, there’s a problem with the atmosphere. There is just no atmosphere established until about five minutes before a fight scene and when it comes to the necromancer, there is no atmosphere here either. I was trying to really enjoy it because I normally love these types of films. I mean, look at the TV Show “Medici” and films like that, it’s awesome. But this film, I feel, is very generic of what is expected of the 14th century small-town situation. I think there was definitely more happening in towns at this time, judging by historical research, than people following these random soldiers of God around. It just seemed a bit shallow and it cornered the storyline a little because there was therefore no character development past the whole soldiers of God thing. It was just a disaster. How could they go so wrong with Eddie Redmayne and Sean Bean? Like, you had to be really bad to go wrong with those two legends.