By not rushing things, by keeping things moving at their own measured pace, Smith gives Poloni's screenplay a chance to breathe and evolve in a way it might not have been able to otherwise.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 25, 2011

"Going medieval" on your enemies isn't just a figure of speech in Christopher Smith's stylish spatter-horror exercise, which uses desperation-fueled religious fervor to interrogate the intersection of fear and faith.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 12, 2011

There's something here for just about everyone, or at least for everyone who looks back fondly on the similarly themed Wicker Man from 1973.

| Original Score: B | Mar 11, 2011

Slams Christians against pagans with little love for either.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 11, 2011

Though deadly serious, Christopher Smith's European-made bubonic- plague melodrama provides good value with lots of blood and guts, as well as a solid cast.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 11, 2011

Early on "Black Death" falls victim to its own sluggish sickness, its narrative drive proving no match for the aggressively rotted pallor, dour acting and tiresomely handheld you-are-there aesthetics.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 10, 2011

Smith effectively recreates the chaos of the medieval era, where the educated and ignorant alike make life-and-death decisions based on superstition.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 10, 2011

Smith keeps the fog, mist and rain machines working overtime, but to such little purpose that Black Death often looks like outtakes from Fiddler on the Roof.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 9, 2011

When your bubonic-plague movie manages to avoid the specter of Monty Python's Flying Circus ("Bring out'cha dead!"), it's definitely doing something right.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 9, 2011

Braves the odds denying us the glorified action of Hollywood and goes straight for the darkest, most realistic telling possible. Admirable, but might be too much for some.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 8, 2011

Religion and morality are both found wanting in this medieval horror-drama devoid of good guys.

| Mar 8, 2011

The movie's real coup is in how it repeatedly shifts our allegiance from Christians to pagans, interrogating the unfathomably still-popular notion that barbarism is best countered with more of the same.

| Mar 8, 2011

Grim aesthetics and an even grimmer worldview define Black Death, in which ardent piousness and defiant paganism both prove paths toward violence, hypocrisy, and hell.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 5, 2011

Black Death is a nasty, brutish film that is far too long.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 6, 2010

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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2010

Dark and dirty entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2010

Like the recent Valhalla Rising, this journey-allegory involving a band of warrior Christians trekking to a promised land is filmed in stripped colours and scarified textures and scored to electronic music.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 9, 2010

This is bracing, often brutal stuff, set in a world where, as Ulric says, 'God has slipped over the horizon.'

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 9, 2010

An encouraging set-up soon descends into a grubby muddle, leaving you wishing you were just rewatching The Name Of The Rose instead.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 9, 2010

There aren't many British horror films you could call Bergmanesque with even slim justification, but Christopher Smith's Black Death is out of the ordinary.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 1800