Metacritic reviews

Here, excessive piety and rampant paganism are equally malevolent forces, the film's baleful view of human nature mirrored in Sebastian Edschmid's swampy photography. As is emphasized in a nicely consistent coda, the Lord's side and the right side are not necessarily one and the same.

Black Death embraces its horror roots with ample bloodshed, at which point the silly costumes and anachronistic dialogue no longer seem so absurd.

Black Death bears some similarities to a zombie movie in the way the plague inevitably overtakes the populace, and it also has one foot in the "creepy community" genre, alongside films like "The Wicker Man" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!"

A moderately creepy, often garishly violent action horror film frontloaded with heretics, Christians, mercenaries, witches, witch-burners, and necromancers. There's something here for just about everyone.

While managing to deliver enough suspense and bloodletting to appease gore fans, steadily improving helmer Christopher Smith ("Severance") and screenwriter Dario Poloni smuggle in a merciless critique of religious delusion.

Screenwriter Dario Poloni and director Christopher Smith provide enough sword-and-sorcery hoo-ha to please the "Lord of the Rings" demographic, but the movie's real coup is in how it repeatedly shifts our allegiance from Christians to pagans.

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.

With unexpected supernatural restraint, the movie approaches a religious parable; am I being unfair in wishing it had a touch more apocalyptic hysteria to it?

Horror film buffs like to giggle as much as scream but there're no giggles here.

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