Black Death (film)
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| Directed by | Christopher Smith |
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| Music by | Christian Henson |
| Cinematography | Sebastian Edschmid |
| Edited by | Stuart Gazzard |
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101 minutes |
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| Box office | $272,445 (Worldwide) |
Black Death is a 2010 German-British action horror film directed by Christopher Smith from an original screenplay by Dario Poloni. It stars Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, and Carice van Houten.
Despite not being credited as a writer, Smith made very significant changes in the second half of the script, including a new ending. All the scenes of Black Death were shot in chronological order, a rare occurrence.
The film takes place in 1348 in plague-ridden medieval England. Osmund (Redmayne), a young monk, has been separated from other people in order to see whether he shows any symptoms of having the plague. After he is released, he sneaks away to meet with a woman, Averill, whom he loves despite his vows of chastity to God as a result of being a monk. Osmund tells Averill the plague has reached the monastery and she must leave to escape the disease. Though Averill asks him to run away with her, he wants to stay at the monastery. She promises to wait for him for one week at a meeting place in the forest in case he changes his mind. Osmund prays to God asking for guidance on whether he can serve God outside of the monastery in order to join his lover Averill. At that moment knight Ulric (Bean) arrives with orders from the Bishop to take a monk as a guide on a quest into the forest. Osmund decides this is a sign from God and volunteers to go. After leaving, Osmund learns that Ulric and his group of mercenaries are tasked with finding a remote marshland village which has remained untouched by the Black Death. The town is said to sacrifice people in order to remain free of the plague, and they are rumored to be led by a necromancer who is able to bring the dead back to life. Their mission is to capture the necromancer, put a stop to the town's sacrifices, and bring the necromancer back to the Bishop. Osmund is supposed to guide them to the village because he has knowledge of the surrounding forest and marsh from his childhood.
On the way to the village, Osmund leaves the group while they are sleeping one morning in an attempt to meet with Averill at their meeting spot. Osmund finds Averill's horse and her torn blood-stained clothing in their meeting spot. He also sees a group of bandits and thieves nearby in the forest and runs back to Ulric and the mercenaries. The bandits from the forest attack Ulric, Osmund, and the mercenaries. Though the bandits are defeated, one member of the mercenary group is killed and Osmund is stabbed (not fatally, but badly). Eventually, Ulric and his group find the village they seek beyond the forest and marsh. The village is an eerie disease-free utopia led by a beautiful woman, Langiva (van Houten). Ulric's group initially claims to be seeking shelter (hiding their true purpose) because they are unsure who the necromancer in the village is and want to draw the necromancer out with deceit. Ulric does not trust the villagers. Ulric tells Osmund that an earlier group of four men had been sent by the church to find the village as well, none of the four men had returned, and Ulric found one of the group's church-medallions being worn by a villager who claimed to have found it in the marsh. Langiva treats Osmund's wound from the bandit attack and then leads Osmund to the body of Averill. Langiva claims that she had found Averill injured in the woods, and that Averill had spoken about Osmund just before her death. While treating Osmund's wounds Langiva reveals that her husband had been killed by "men of God". That night the town has a feast welcoming their guests. As everyone eats Langiva leads Osmund into the forest where many women are performing a ritual over the buried body of Averill. During this ritual Langiva appears to resurrect the dead body of Averill, and Osmund runs away upon seeing this. Osmund runs into the crucified corpses of the four men who had previously been sent by the church, and he is taken prisoner by the town. At the feast, Ulric and his mercenaries are drugged and then taken prisoner by the town. They all awake the next day tied in a pit of water.
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