#13: Roger Corman’s Masque of the Red Death
Poe’s tale of plague infects the B-movies
This review was originally posted on Twitter on November 23, 2018.
Initial release: 1964
Director: Roger Corman
In the 1960s, B-movie king Roger Corman, hot off his first critical success (1958’s Machine Gun Kelly), directed several films based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, including Masque of the Red Death. Vincent Price helps make Masque compelling cheese.
Based on… you guessed it… the Poe story of the same name, but greatly expanding on what’s arguably a symbolism-heavy, dream-like tale, borderline poetry, Masque (the film) presents, instead, a straightforward tale of cruelty, decadence and hubris.
In who-the-hell-knows-when (but probably the 16th century) Italy, Vincent Price is Prince Prospero, a charming but cruel Satanist. Upon discovering the presence of the Red Death in a village, he seals up his castle and invites several other nobles to come for a party.
Among the people in the castle are three survivors from the village: Francesca, her father, and her boyfriend Gino. Prospero seems keen on corrupting Francesca (at the expense of his other student, Juliana) while tormenting the men for his own amusement.
Eventually, Gino is allowed to escape with his life, and devises a plan to rescue Francesca. It’s unnecessary, though, because the party, with all its laughing nobles and cruel jokes, is about to be crashed in a big way.
Some might compare this film to The Seventh Seal (1957), and, indeed, the Red Death (an uncredited John Westbrook) seems to take a lot of cues from Ingmar Bergman’s pale-faced Grim Reaper. But I think the comparison is flawed, as they’re different movies doing different things.
That’s not to say that the scenes involving the Red Death aren’t disquieting, even when he’s being benevolent. His presence looms over even Price, who’s spent the film with a mouth full of scenery as usual, the Red Death a kind of unstoppable natural force against venal, cynical evil.
Prospero, for his part, oozes sinister charm, clearly infatuated with Francesca and delighting in taking things that capture his interest, then abandoning them when he grows bored. The film has some notably striking imagery, but for the most part, Price is what carries it.
The same can’t be said for most of the other characters. The captured villagers are so blandly heroic that they’re hardly memorable, even Francesca, who isn’t nearly as steadfast in her Christian faith as the script would have you believe.
Jilted Juliana is more interesting as she continues her quest to be a bride of Satan (though she clearly equates him with Prospero;) her cheesy death scene is poor payoff for the build-up. A scene of her hallucinating her own ritual murder is also more laughable than unsettling.
More unsettling than laughable is a side-plot (based on Poe’s Hop-frog,) involving a dwarf avenging his insulted lover, who is SUPPOSED to be a dwarf, but was instead played by a 7 year old. (At least they don’t kiss.) Worse, her lines are dubbed over by an adult woman.
I’m of two minds on this film. Price is great; the Red Death is great, but the fact that the film’s success hinges on these two characters (who were the only definable ones in the original story) speaks to the weakness of the script’s expanding from the source material.
