Black Death

Once again, courtesy of See Film First, I had the pleasure of watching a movie on the big screen gratis last Friday. This time at the plush Empire cinema in Leicester Square. The movie? Black Death. Set in the middle ages of England, the bubonic plague is rife, with dead bodies piled in the muddy cobbled streets. The church believes the disease is god’s way of punishing sinners, purging the country of wrong doers. A young monk is recruited by the Bishops envoy (Sean Bean) to visit a village that has apparently abandoned god and sided with a demon to stay clear of the disease. After an eventful journey across the English countryside to the marsh beyond which the village lies, the team of soldiers arrive to capture and torture the necromancer who allegedly makes human sacrifices to denounce god and his plague.

The film is eye opening historically, presenting a very gritty and impoverished medieval England. With scenes of witch burning and medieval torture, the movie is shocking and violent, yet gripping. With parallels to The Crucible, it highlights the issues of public hysteria and questions religion and the motives of the medieval church. In all the theme is interesting as a discussion point but the storyline falls a little flat.