Shock Totem 4 by K. Allen Wood (Editor)

Author:K. Allen Wood (Editor) [Wood, K. Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Shock Totem Publications
Published: 2011-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

–Robert J. Duperre

Black Death, by Christopher Smith (director) and Dario Poloni (writer); starring Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Carice Van Houten; 2010; R; 97 min.

The year is 1348, and the Black Death is running rampant in Europe. Opinions in a small village in Britain are divided about what is causing the plague. Is it God's punishment for an unspecified sin, or is it an evil that can be fought and conquered with God's help? A young novice named Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) is less concerned with the theological implications than he is with protecting the life of a young maiden that he has secretly fallen in love with. He sends her away, but she begs him to join her, and thus begins his dilemma. Should he join the woman he loves and forgo becoming a monk or stay and serve God?

He finds his answer in Sir Ulrich (Sean Bean), the leader of a small contingency of soldiers who are looking for a village said to be protected from the plague. Osmund offers to guide them to it and join up with his girl without having to reveal the real reason for leaving the abbey.

But along the way, Ulrich confides in Osmund. The village is said to be protected by a necromancer, whom Ulrich means to kill. But is she, the necromancer, really bringing the dead back to life? Where does the real evil lie? These are the questions the film sets out to answer.

But it goes about answering them in a heavy-handed fashion that feels more like a philosophy treatise than a film. By the end, we are doing no more than choosing sides based on our own biases. The moral ambiguity between competing religious viewpoints is handled fairly evenly, but subtlety is lacking. I would have been happier if the writer had spent less time raising questions and more time answering them. The ending in particular was filled with confusion, as the narration and visuals are diametrically opposed. We are left feeling puzzled and cheated out of any resolution.

The only bright spot is the performance of the cast. The actors are quite good at their craft, with the exception of the unremarkable Redmayne, but even the best actor can only do so much with a poorly written script. The film is billed as an action/horror hybrid, but there are few action scenes (although those few are done well), and little to no horror element. It's a real shame this movie could not deliver a better product with so much B-movie potential.

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