Black Death's Europe is one of dirt, blood, violence and mist.

A savage, genuine reflection of the Middle Ages, allowing for maximum nastiness and a few excitingly bloody moments.

Black Death has all the makings of a cult film -- if it gets an enduring following, it will be well-earned.

I'll wager grown-ups will be duly horrified by it. Not because of the gore -- although it does have a fair amount of that -- but because it takes you on a real journey into the heart of darkness, and you might not like what you find there.

Black Death definitely isn't a rollicking, bloody good time, but it is a haunting study in the capacity for cruelty in people when they're scared, and the lingering effects that cruelty can have.

In Black Death, Christopher Smith effectively creates a creepy and unsettling atmosphere with great production values. He shows lots of potential as a director and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next.

Acts as if no one ever thought to make a movie about the bubonic plague before.

It shows the worst things that people do to each other in the name of religion. This could have been more of a thought-provoking film, but it turns into a gore porn display.

Bean owns this movie.

An entertaining, if by-the-numbers, entry to the sword-and-shield genre, Black Death features lots of blood, disease, and the seemingly requisite Sean Bean.

A film without the ideas or guts to bring hell to life onscreen.

What could be more cheerful than a graphic bubonic plague picture?

Smith isn't presenting a peace offering so much as a reminder of the ease with which we slip into violence.

Smith's excellent, tension-building style is complemented by powerful performances from broadsword specialist Bean and Redmayne

Black Death is the feel bad movie of the year, a film with an unrelentingly bleak view of humankind's barbaric nature and the notion that, no matter what your creed, violence only ever begets more violence.

This movie had a lot of potential, but missed the mark for me, which is almost worse than a film being a complete waste of time.

This film bathes in bloody, brutal ambiguity, intelligently casting both Christians and pagans as murderous creeps in a way that looks back objectively at 14th century ignorance while shining an ugly, knowing light on contemporary religious arrogance, too.

There are bright spots in this dark-ages movie

There's no glory for Black Death's mercenaries at the end of their journey, but for the audience there's a fascinating take on religion and morality that also features some pretty decent swordplay-and really, how much more can a movie offer?

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.