Black Death – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

Christopher Smith, the British auteur has been flying under the radar since his 2004 feature debut Creep i.e. the best subterranean creature feature since Gary Sherman’s Raw Meat, also known as Death Line. He out did himself with Severance, best described as Friday the 13th meets the cast of The Office on a team-building weekend in the mountains. Then there is Triangle – a spooky, sea bound, time travel project that was poorly handled by its distributor and it never really found its audience.

It is 1348, the Year of our Lord, and a bishop sends a monk and an assemblage of holy warriors to a Utopian village that is kept safe from the pestilence by a necromancer, a witch who uses a form of black magic in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirit of a deceased person, either as a ghost or apparition, for the purpose of divination. Fearing the love of his life might catch the dreaded disease, the monk implores her to leave to the marsh that is not at all what it seems. Our heroes are welcomed with open arms and are invited to a grand feast, and in the process, they make the cardinal sin of letting down their guard and not realizing their food is drugged. The attractive heretic shows the monk that his woman has “perished” as he questions his faith in God as to why she was taken away from him. He starts hallucinating that she is still alive, and witnesses a ceremony where it appears she is brought back from the dead.

Before reaching their designated destination there is a whole lot of walking and talking that was an unfriendly reminder why I have not watched any of the Lord of the Rings films since they first came out. I appreciate the slow burn approach, but none of the exchanges are very engaging and I felt like I was watching Centurion, sans the gore and action. Then things kick into high gear as our band of brothers are put on display in front of the flock of villagers, trapped inside of steel bars, and will be allowed to live only if they denounce their vengeful God. “If they keep him, they will die.” It is here where the two different sects of people jaw back and forth about their beliefs and who is on the right side – material that I find fascinating. They are the kind of exchanges that still go on today and will until the end of time. Regardless of whether you are Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, agnostic, or an atheist – these theological differences make us who we are.

Black Death does not hit the unreachable stratosphere of cherished works like The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General, but it is a grungy, first-rate horror thriller that shows Christopher Smith is a major talent and a force to be reckoned with at a time when creativity and originality is a lost form of art.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: Magnet Releasing’s HD presentation looks and sounds mighty fine. The dark, gritty, grainy picture is intention and the transfer is as good as it should look. Nice DTS track, which booms the bass and adds mood properly with the score and atmospheric sound design.

Deleted Scenes: We get four ho-hum standard def scenes here, that are better left here, as the film would have dragged on more.

Interviews: 12 interviews total! 12! Everyone from the director (re-read our interview here), to everyone from the cast, which is the disc’s best extras, especially since you can watch them individually.

HDNet First Look: EPK, but a nice watch nonetheless and in HD.

A standard def behind-the-scenes look, trailers, and a Digital Copy finish off the disc’s extras.

The Film: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: