If The Name of the Rose and High Plains Drifter had offspring it might look something like this. Although this child would, alas, be inferior to the parents. That's not to say it's a bad film. If you want to spend two hours in the worst year England has known you've come to the right place; rain, plague, misery, violence. There's something Pythonesque about the squalor the characters inhabit "Ooo, there's some nice muck here". There's even a chastity belt and a false nose thrown in. The acting is top notch, Lena Hedley holds everything together as the noble milady, Ian McNiece as a delightfully corrupt bishop and Jason Fleming a psychotic knight with a tiny monkey, no really.
The music is epic but strangely out of place evoking an England in happier Arcadian times. A darker, base toned score as used in The Name of the Rose would have contributed to th menace. The photography is, I believe, in film rather than cinematic video and this raises the film's quality allowing rich, glowing colour in the warmer scenes to grainy realism in the rain-soaked outdoors.
But it's flaws are the run time, it's a lot to get through in one sitting as a times the story can drag in places. There's a degree of confusion over what exactly is going on for some time, admittedly wrapped up toward the end, but taking some leaps in the viewers imagination to piece it all together. Nice ending though, which I think suggests the Black Plague is a human manifestation travelling from village to village exacting revenge for the sins on the guilty. A wandering Angel of Death.
Incidentally, the title and poster art rebranding on Amazon suggests a Game of Thrones cash in which is unfair as the film is it's own thing, for good or bad.
Review of Black Plague
