Page 3 | AIBU to be surprised there is no proper film about the plague?

viques · 29/05/2026 02:14

The Journal of the Plague Year.

All the stats could be presented as text on the screen. Be just like reading the book, oh, hold on a minute , bit of a flaw in the argument there, back in a while……

canuckup · 29/05/2026 02:10

There isn't one about the Pendle witch trials either

MaySheWillStay · 29/05/2026 01:13

LegallyBlondish · 28/05/2026 21:42

The Roses of Eyam - a 1970s adaptation of a play based around true facts. I remember watching it as a child. I did a history degree back in the olden days & I find this era, and this particular story, to be fascinating.

When Covid hit, the English/Drama teacher at the learning centre I TA’d at did this with a group online.

Well done, Teresa! (We’ve both retired now)

Newname26 · 29/05/2026 01:11

Nopenott0day · 28/05/2026 22:18

There's enough bad historical "knowledge" about "the plague" (everyone usually means the one of the 14th c, when really there was a few), such as bird masks (which didn't appear til mid 17thc) that I'm not sure Hollywood could possibly make it worse.

Yes and for some reason I thought it only affected the densely populated London

It was a passing comment by a historian at Dunfermline Abbey that told me different, that's a mass grave from the plague of x date and the one over there is y date. 😳

ScullyD · 29/05/2026 01:04

I think some kind of Robert Eggers tale could for this. I think he’s the only one that could pull it off!

TowerRaven · 29/05/2026 00:30

Restoration, 1995 dir. Michael Hoffman and starring Robert Downey Jr.
Plague and Great Fire! I remember it being pretty naff.

aurpod1980 · 29/05/2026 00:26

Hamnet

AllTheChaos · 29/05/2026 00:22

Foraor · 28/05/2026 23:54

Exactly. The very popular novel I’ve sometimes been surprised hasn’t ever (to my knowledge) been filmed, Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book (timetravelling history student is accidentally sent to the Black Death and can’t be recalled because there’s a contemporary pandemic) hasn’t been filmed in part because the latter part of the Black Death timeline is so horrifying as the time-traveller, who is immune, nurses all the characters we’ve got to know as they die horribly.

Show quote history

Is that the one where she can’t speak the local language at first as the translation implant has gone wrong? With the priest who sort of falls in love with her, helps care for the sick then dies himswlf? If so thank you - I’ve been trying to remember the name of the book for ages without success!

InterestedDad37 · 29/05/2026 00:16

I'm imagining a Busby Berkeley-style musical, called "Bring Out Your Dead" 😀 🧟 💃 🕺 🦠 🐀 🎶

MyAutumnCrow · 29/05/2026 00:11

FieryMexicanClive · 28/05/2026 23:44

Yanbu they should get Julia Roberts in. Eat, Plague, Love.

She’s got a whole catalogue ahead of her.

Septic Pizza
Seeping with the Enemy
Dying Young

Twisterlollies · 28/05/2026 23:59

Covid the Movie would be so much easier script wise.

Romance: Matt Hancock and Gina Thingy
Plot twist: Dominic Cummings
Light humour: Boris Johnson

Settings:
Houses of Parliament
Barnard Castle
Matt Hancock’s love nest

Music:
Dancing Queen
Chimes of BBC News at 6

Isittimeformynapyet · 28/05/2026 23:59

Aintgointogoa · 28/05/2026 23:46

Hammett (the movie) was plague adjacent I believe ....as far as I understand it, great swathes of the great and the good plus the monarch and court debunked to their country estates from London in the summer as the disease hadn't run it's course but wasn't quite plague pit levels. Also Wolf Hall (Henry VIII & Thomas Cromwell) has this narrative. Not particularly keen to revisit personally 🤧

the monarch and court debunked to their country estates

decamped

Foraor · 28/05/2026 23:54

Twisterlollies · 28/05/2026 23:48

What would the story arc be? There were no big medical breakthroughs, there was no vaccine or uplifting end to it. Just an awful lot of people dying a hideous death after a life of drinking unsterilised water, living with cattle and giving birth in fields.

Show quote history

Exactly. The very popular novel I’ve sometimes been surprised hasn’t ever (to my knowledge) been filmed, Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book (timetravelling history student is accidentally sent to the Black Death and can’t be recalled because there’s a contemporary pandemic) hasn’t been filmed in part because the latter part of the Black Death timeline is so horrifying as the time-traveller, who is immune, nurses all the characters we’ve got to know as they die horribly.

HelenaWilson · 28/05/2026 23:50

I was petrified of contracting the plague from the dirty parts of the school playground at 6.

I think I might have caught it once 😀

I was looking at some 17th century records in which plague deaths were recorded. It wasn't a well used volume like parish burial records; probably few people had opened it since it was created. It was June, but that evening I felt so shivery, as if I was going down with flu, I had to go to bed with a hot water bottle.

I felt fine the next day, but have always wondered....

Foraor · 28/05/2026 23:49

FieryMexicanClive · 28/05/2026 23:44

Yanbu they should get Julia Roberts in. Eat, Plague, Love.

Actually, I’d watch that.

Twisterlollies · 28/05/2026 23:48

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

What would the story arc be? There were no big medical breakthroughs, there was no vaccine or uplifting end to it. Just an awful lot of people dying a hideous death after a life of drinking unsterilised water, living with cattle and giving birth in fields.

curious79 · 28/05/2026 23:48

It features as a sideline in many films and dramas. But as an event it doesn’t really make sense unless for example you’re just talking about the first arrival in the UK in the 1300s. Even then it was around for about 40/50 years, with periodic outbreaks

Aintgointogoa · 28/05/2026 23:46

Hammett (the movie) was plague adjacent I believe ....as far as I understand it, great swathes of the great and the good plus the monarch and court debunked to their country estates from London in the summer as the disease hadn't run it's course but wasn't quite plague pit levels. Also Wolf Hall (Henry VIII & Thomas Cromwell) has this narrative. Not particularly keen to revisit personally 🤧

KitchenDancefloor · 28/05/2026 23:45

There’s always Outbreak for a modern take on the genre.

FieryMexicanClive · 28/05/2026 23:44

Yanbu they should get Julia Roberts in. Eat, Plague, Love.

Foraor · 28/05/2026 23:40

But all those (to me mind-bogglingly dull) dystopian horrors like 28 Days Later are essentially plague films. A realist film about the Black Death would be both dull and absolutely horrible.

I mean, there’s a reason directors aren’t queueing up to make the great Ebola movie.

fandjango · 28/05/2026 23:36

5128gap · 28/05/2026 21:20

No thank you. The plague is the stuff of my nightmares. Rats, big ugly boils, locked in your house with the corpses of your loved ones and those sinister long nose mask things. I learned about it an impressionable age in junior school and have found it deeply disturbing ever since. I saw a plague mask the other day in a museum and it made me shudder.

This is me too. I was petrified of contracting the plague from the dirty parts of the school playground at 6. Drove my parents mad as was constantly washing!

VivaciousCurrentBun · 28/05/2026 23:34

Read Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, great book set in Eyam.

Ifeeltheneedtheneedforcoffee · 28/05/2026 22:57

Just watch lots of horrible histories. There's even the plague song (now stuck in my head)
Agree with a pp a ghosts plague pit special would be amazing

Brank · 28/05/2026 22:46

I’m not sure it would be very good. People get it, they die, they get buried. You could have a film set at the time of one of the major outbreaks but you’d need some kind of plot.

The only plague related story worth filming that I can think of is Eyam.