[Andrew W]

This movie reminds me of a bit from a 10th century English sermon by Ælfric:

'Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil; and he comes to them in the likeness of the man who is buried there, as if he arise from death.' (Meaney 1984: 131)

Do witches really bring back the dead, or is it just the devil putting on a likeness of the departed person?

I wondered if this quote had anything to do with the idea behind the movie, or if the screenwriters just accidentally stumbled onto something historical.

[Jimi Edmonds]

At least they didn't push the 'Rats and Fleas' caused the Black Death, due to some guy in the late 19th, early 20th century discovering Yersina pestious, so therefore it must have been bubonic plague that caused so many deaths, although the death times and incubation times don't match with historical records and the fact that how did Iceland suffer from the Black Death when at that time the place was uninhabited by rats or fleas due to the climite? and if people died so quick from the diesease how could it have passed from person to person or traveled long distance?
Except for near the start where they showed a rat in the chamber of the young monk fellow...

Bubonic Plague death times from infection, said to be 1-5 days
Pnuemonic Plague death times from infection, said to be 1-3 days
Black Death death times from infection, said to be 12-30 days where as from the first week or two since infection you are thought to be contagious and from then on once symptoms appear supposed you have 1-12 days+ before expiring!

It is thought that the Black Death is a Virus, a hemorrhagic type virus, simular to Ebola. Though the debate rages still!

other than that the film was ok..

[T. Arndt]

[Jimi Edmonds]

The lack of noted dead rats, sort of says something, although it has been said that it was a different strain of the bacteria, more than likely pnuemonic, due to the droplet infection which, they were aware of back in the day. But then does bubonic plague decompose from your insides out?
Still unless it rears its ugly head again I don't think they'll ever get an exzact on what it is for a few years yet!

[Dan Howard]

The WHO reckons that there are 1000-3000 cases of Yersina pestis every year. I know of at least one case in the US last year (New Mexico). But this assumes that this disease is the same at that which caused the Black Death. The articles that Mr Arndt linked to seem pretty conclusive.

Here, by combining ancient DNA analyses and protein-specific detection, we demonstrate unambiguously that Y. pestis caused the Black Death.

[Nathan Quarantillo]

For me, the make or break is if a movie is entertaining or good enough to keep me distracted from the silly innacuracies.

For instance, Kingdom of Heaven is the best example. I love the Crusades. I could nit-pik a screenshot from the movie to oblivion if I wanted to. Yet the movie had me so engrossed that I for the mostpart, didn't think about the level of accuracy present.
To a lesser extent, the same could be said for Season of the Witch.

Then there are movies didn't quite cut it. Best example, the new Robin Hood movie. Everytime I saw a sallet (in the late 12th century!), my mind was cut off from the movie and drawn to it. Same for anything else really glaring, like Robin Hood's lammellar armour and the friggin medieval Higgins boats (I'm not exaggerating on that last one). Just wasn't entertaining enough to keep my mind from wandering.

[Ben Coomer]

You should keep in mind that 14th Century Europe was a very dirty, very crowded, and very vulnerable population when the Great Mortality struck. At the beginning of the century, a widespread famine killed 10% of the population and malnutrition was pretty common as the climate cooled significantly. Add to it a particularly virulent strain of plague that easily transitioned between bubonic (which favors warm temps) and pneumonic (which is more common in wintertime), and the death toll isn't all that surprising. There's even a suspect local for its origin. The northern border of China rather frequent sees a virulent and deadly form of plague crop up.

An ebola or anthrax explanation has some appeal and may have even been running around behind the scenes, plague still best fits the symptoms (bubos, splotches, mortality), transmission patterns (relatively slow moving but persistent, usually passed by flees but potentially pneumatic), and that we regularly find Plague DNA in mass graves.

[William P]

i think prop cost ofcourse limits what costume you chose.. leather armour and scale is dime a dozen
one expert on ninjutsu noted that in the recent ninja films of 2009 or so, they uconsistantly se nobunaga hanwei armour for yoroi because it was the cheapest.

a COP like the wisby COP is xpensive somewhat its not normally stocked.

also, despite the historical data the pervading perception is that the midle ages was dirty and gray nd grim aka the 'dark ages'
so people expect very grim overtones somewhat. especially if its about the black plague years.

thats the feeling with me as well too abot HA in movies as was said above

kingdom of heavan was a goodexample, it LOOKED awsome, were there things wrong, massively but it looked crsuaderlike, for most thats fine (though admittedl thatsbecausewhen i watched it i ALSO thought that great helms were used during the time of the crusades. and not abit later.

at the same token, while many baulk at troys costume design and setting.
I as someone MILDLY familier withthe ancient greeks, not as well as dan or matt amt, but for example, the movie helen of troy(featuring john rys davies at priam) set everythig in a classical greek setting aka corinthian helms etc.

troy gave a good impression of bronze age things, like i roughly recognised the tower shields and crescent moon shields and such, plus the bronze looking swords and knives and spearheads. you get the idea.. point is it correctly gave the illusion the director wanted..

but if its too grossl wrong i can understand our annoyances for example, read a book titledrobin hood and the zombie plague. i.e it was a robin hood takes on zombies,
and while it states the year of setting we FREQUENTLY hear of plate armour and crossbows it made me wonder if the kid who wrote this even spent 5 minutes on wikipedia.. since he noted te 12th century setting and... yeah... (the actual zombie scenario was good though. and quite fun to read).
(little john having a double bitted roadaxe was minor in comparison )

[Jojo Zerach]

[Jimi Edmonds]

I just hated the new Robin Hood film with Russel, everything about it sucked balls! I prefered the UK latest Robin Hood series, was much better, although the getups were terrible!
Flesh and Blood wasn't to bad...

[Y. Perez]

[Luka Borscak]

[Ben Coomer]