I found this old gem on Shudder, a Roger Corman-produced adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe horror story starring the great Vincent Price. Price always had that nice, creepy-yet-classy voice of his that worked well for this kind of material, and looking over his resume shows he did a number of Poe adaptations for a few years there. This one may be one of the more blatantly supernatural ones that Poe wrote and not just some madman explaining why he wasn’t crazy until karma caught up to him or an odd torture scene.
No, the Masque of the Red Death is much more an allegory for Poe, but for Corman’s production, it may be something else.
Price stars as Prince Prospero, a cruel autocrat in medieval Italy. When a plague called the “Red Death” hits his domain, he does what any uncaring monarch would do and shuts himself, his wealthy friends, and an army of servants, guards, and entertainers up in his castle, refusing to let anyone in as the always-fatal Red Death ravages the countryside. Prospero is, on top of everything else, a Satanist, and he doesn’t even try to hide that fact. His only rule inside his own castle is to forbid the wearing of the color red.
Of course, Poe’s story makes it clear that simply locking the door doesn’t keep death, whether it comes from a plague or some other source, out forever, and both stories end with most of the people in that country, including Prospero and most of his guests, dead from the very disease he sought to exclude. Now, Poe’s story is also pretty short, and the Satanist angle is something that I believe is new. How can Corman expand that? Basically, he can make it something of a morality play. Poe’s aristocracy do deserve to suffer since they decided to party while people died, and Corman takes it a couple steps further. Prospero rewards debauchery. When his little person jester Hop-Toad, pulls off a stunt that causes one of Prospero’s guests to burn to death (mostly as a cover so Hop-Toad and his little person girlfriend can both escape the castle), Prospero’s not angry in the slightest and instead wants to give the jester a reward of five gold coins for a creative bit of entertainment.
In fact, much of the movie deals with Prospero trying to corrupt an innocent peasant girl, a very devout Christian. This woman, Francesca (Jane Asher), is there to prove Prospero can corrupt anyone as he holds her lover and father hostage elsewhere. The lover, Gino (David Weston), is devoted to her, and in a twist to Poe’s narrative, is actually the one to let the Red Death in his human form into the castle. As for the Red Death itself, though it says it is neutral and all people must meet their end eventually, he does seem to take some sides. Gino, Francesca, Hop-Toad, and Hop-Toad’s lover are among the six people in the entire country that are spared (the other two are a young girl and an old man), and while the Red Death may say otherwise, the fact that there were among the only truly virtuous people in the movie, or at least the only ones acting with virtuous motives, suggests there was some karmic justice for the story.
That said, between the vivid colors and the morality tale at its center, this really is Price’s movie. He’s so delightfully evil, truly enjoying doing things that are twisted and wrong simply because he thinks it will curry favor for him with the devil. He’s wrong in the end. He is no better or worse when it comes to Death, and the Red Death doesn’t take religious sides. He even gets to taunt the arrogant prince a bit before Prospero dies. Maybe a movie about a plague isn’t the right thing to go with right now, but when it’s Vincent Price at his scene-chewing evil best, I sure don’t mind.
Grade: B+
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