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Original poster

AIBU to be surprised there is no proper film about the plague?

113 replies

AliceNotInChains · 28/05/2026 21:13

Would love to see a proper well done movie about the plague - AIBU to be suprised that it hasn’t been done?? Titanic style

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Beer3000 · 30/05/2026 14:12

Would love to see a film adaptation of Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (time travel book, set during an outbreak of illness in both the near future, and the 1300s).

The future pandemic portions are maybe too close to the bone though - she predicted covid eerily well.

TowerRaven · 30/05/2026 13:49

Mochudubh · 28/05/2026 21:43

I've just finished Minette Walters' duology about the Black Death, I'd like to see a series based on that.

https://minettewalters.co.uk/books/the-last-hours/

Thanks @Mochudubh for recommendation - just started this and very impressed so far 😊

TowerRaven · 30/05/2026 13:46

Daisydoesnt · 29/05/2026 07:51

I’m surprised the very readable “Turn of Midnight” by Minette Walters hasn’t been mentioned yet. It’s set in Dorset in a moated village which barricades itself in: the bubonic plague is thought to have landed in medieval England at Melcombe Regis, near Weymouth. It really brought to life for me what it might have been like as the plague ravaged the countryside, villages, people.

It doesn’t sound very promising but it’s a really interesting and entertaining read!!

Edited

Thank you for the recommendation @Daisydoesnt , just started this and very impressed so far 😊

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 18:37

@SerendipityJane

Sorry, it's Friday and I'm tired. I assume you're joking about reporting but I don't get it.

Womanofcustard · 29/05/2026 18:18

You could try ‘Pride and Prejudice with Zombies’!
History re-written around Jane Austen to include a zombie plague.

NearCanongate · 29/05/2026 17:56

@TwoLeggedGrooveMachine
This has reminded me about a terrifying film for children I saw aged about age 6 or 7 called The Bells of Astercote (had to google the story line to find the name). Some children wander into a wood and when they touch old stones they are transported back to a village filled with plague victims. Proper creepy stuff.

Was this based on a book by Penelope Lively? I remember a book but don't think I've seen a film.

Shithotlawyer · 29/05/2026 17:08

Ten Things I Hate About Bue (boes)

Musicaltheatremum · 29/05/2026 16:33

HelenaWilson · 29/05/2026 16:12

...... the great fire of London which ended the plague of the 1660s

It didn't.
The plague was worst in the poor and crowded outer areas, such as St Giles. The Fire was mostly in the City.
And the plague was everywhere in 1665-66, not just in London.

1665-66 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England, but it didn't end because of the Fire.

I was more interested in telling the story of the musical than the facts but hey ho it's Friday night let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

HelenaWilson · 29/05/2026 16:12

...... the great fire of London which ended the plague of the 1660s

It didn't.
The plague was worst in the poor and crowded outer areas, such as St Giles. The Fire was mostly in the City.
And the plague was everywhere in 1665-66, not just in London.

1665-66 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England, but it didn't end because of the Fire.

SerendipityJane · 29/05/2026 15:29

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 15:28

Eh?

😂

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 15:28

Eh?

SerendipityJane · 29/05/2026 15:27

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 15:26

Who's afraid of Yersinia Woolf?

Reported 😎

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 15:26

Who's afraid of Yersinia Woolf?

Shithotlawyer · 29/05/2026 15:08

Weepsores In Seattle

JoWawa · 29/05/2026 15:04

AliceNotInChains · 28/05/2026 21:13

Would love to see a proper well done movie about the plague - AIBU to be suprised that it hasn’t been done?? Titanic style

Perhaps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_(1992_film)

The Plague (1992 film) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_(1992_film)

Musicaltheatremum · 29/05/2026 14:50

There was a musical written about the great fire of London which ended the plague of the 1660s. It was written by Robert J Sherman and had one performance at the adelphi theatre in London in September 2016. It was quite good though all a bit make believe

Squirrelsnut · 29/05/2026 14:47

The 14th century Black Death or the 17th century plague? (Eyam, etc).
There's a strange and beguiling film called The Navigator about the plague but it's pretty surreal.

SerendipityJane · 29/05/2026 14:39

HelenaWilson · 28/05/2026 21:39

think it would be quite hard to do a movie - maybe we could have the great fire of London instead

Just go and read Pepys' Diary. You get Plague and Fire and the year after that the Dutch attack on the Medway.

Anyone making a film would be using Pepys as the primary source, so you might as well go straight to the original.

(And also John Evelyn's Diary, but Pepys is better.)

We so need a biopic of Pepys. Absolute filth.

AprilMizzel · 29/05/2026 14:37

I read A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh as teen - a tragic love story grafted onto actual events and in end surviving heroine marries another childhood friend and head to the new world ie america.

I've seen TV adpations where plauge and great fire or earlier civil war are background to characters journeys.

I mean Histrical film set in upheavel of earliest black death plague in UK 1346 to 1353 - that led to peasant revolt - haven't seen as much it's usually 16 century one that gets the focus.

FieryMexicanClive · 29/05/2026 14:19

FieryMexicanClive · 29/05/2026 14:18

The Pestilence Brief

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My Best Friend's Buboes

FieryMexicanClive · 29/05/2026 14:18

Shithotlawyer · 29/05/2026 10:29

Spotty Woman

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The Pestilence Brief

Thiswasanescapeplan · 29/05/2026 13:58

Shithotlawyer · 29/05/2026 10:29

Spotty Woman

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😆 haha!

Daisydoesnt · 29/05/2026 13:34

Mochudubh · 29/05/2026 10:33

I mentioned this upthread. I've just finished reading both The Last Hours and The Turn of Midnight and would love to see them on screen (as long as they don't muck around with the books too much).

As a slight aside, Minette Walters is an excellent historical novelist. I only discovered this recently as I thought she only wrote gory crime fiction which isn't my thing.

If you haven't read them @Daisydoesnt I'd also recommend The Swift and the Harrier and it's sequel The Players, set around the Civil War and the Restoration.

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Thank you I’ll give them a go! After I’d read the two plague novels you mention I tried another of MW’s in her usual crime oeuvre which I thought it was dreadful!

CaptainMyCaptain · 29/05/2026 12:37

OverlyFragrant · 29/05/2026 10:24

I think a film about the Village of Eyam would be brilliant.

That poor woman who buried her husband and seven children herself (the Riley graves). There are lots of individual stories like Emmett and Rowland who I mentioned above and the Reverend Mompesson who quarantined the village and stopped it from spreading.

VickyEadie · 29/05/2026 11:27

The episode of Upstart Crow set during an outbreak of the plague in London (it was written and aired during the Covid period and brilliantly reflected it) is well worth watching. Ben Elton satirised the wearing (or not) of masks during Covid by having Shakespeare ranting about people not wearing "plaguey beaks".