The Masque of the Red Death

source: The Masque of the Red Death

Trailer—The Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs n found it to be boring. Revisited it recently n found it to be engrossing n a different horror film. It has a lovely performance by Price, amazing cinematography n i feel this is Corman's best directorial effort. Comparisons with The Seventh Seal n Salvador Dali's imagery is bound to crop up but like the artist Dali himself quoted, "Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing". The hallucination scene aka the psychedelic dream sequence is top notch. The plague infested villages, isolated castles, decked halls, sumptuous bathrooms, the altar-rooms, the dungeons, the torture chambers, etc are amazingly captured. Another highlight is the character Hop Toad played wonderfully by Skip Martin.

So many of Vincent Price's movies involve the master in so much pain, hurt by the world in which he lived. This one is one of the better of the Poe pastiches. Here he plays the Prince Prospero, who has wild parties at his castle, while the riff raff live outside, dying from some bloody plague. What is great is the overconfidence of Price as he taunts and maligns and hurts people for pleasure. The Edgar Allen Poe story "Hop Frog" has been incorporated into this one. Since it was released in 1964, Roger Corman uses some rather surreal psychedelic stuff with fish eye lenses and red filters. We all know what is going to happen, but Price is a precious quantity to emotes all over the place. In his case he is forgiven.