![]() But is the village just a mass psychotic myth? Or are godless rituals actually being enacted in the remote fields? One of Ulric's soldiers, Ivo, played by Tygo Gernandt, has a distinct resemblance to Klaus Kinski in Aquirre, Wrath Of God. Bean's mission is to capture the villagers' leader in the name of the church, secure a confession and put him to the sword. Smiths film is a frightening journey into the social fabric of evil, religious persecution, pathological cruelty and supernatural possibility. Sean Bean plays Ulric, a religious knight who, at the height of the Black Death, is leading a band of mercenaries across country in search of a remote village, that has been entirely spared the plague, reportedly because the inhabitants practise satanic rituals, and the Dark Lord wards off the sickness and brings corpses back to life. In a genre I can only describe as Dark Ages Pulp, he has created some very effective entertainment with nods to Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man. Black Death delivers the fire and brimstone violence its subject matter warrants. ![]() ![]() I was agnostic about horror director Chris Smith's first film, Creep, but this has an insistent, dour darkness and narrative energy that is very watchable indeed. ![]()
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