The Masque of the Red Death (film)
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| The Masque of the Red Death | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Roger Corman |
| Produced by | Roger Corman, George Willoughby |
| Written by | Charles Beaumont, R. Wright Campbell, Edgar Allan Poe |
| Starring | Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher |
| Cinematography | Nicolas Roeg |
| Distributed by | AIP Anglo-Amalgamated |
| Release date(s) | 1964 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Masque of the Red Death is a classic 1964 horror film, directed by Roger Corman, based on the short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. It incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog." The film stars Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher and Patrick Magee.
[edit] Plot summary
The story is set in a semi-mythic medieval Europe. The corrupt Satanist Prince Prospero (Price) invites several dozen of the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. The local peasantry, or anyone that the Prince suspects of being infected by the plague, are killed by crossbow fire outside the castle walls.
Subplots include the attempted corruption of an innocent Christian village girl, played by actress Jane Asher, the revenge of a dwarf entertainer Hop-Toad upon the brute who abuses his beloved miniature mistress, and the damnation and death of Prince Prospero's consort Juliana. The film includes one of Corman's distinctive psychedelic dream sequences.
Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball, with the stipulation that no one is to wear red. At the ball, amidst a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, Prospero notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be an ambassador from his master, Satan, Prospero addresses him as "your Excellency". As the ball is transformed into a danse macabre, the red-masked figure asks why Prospero keeps calling him "your Excellency," declaring "I have no title." Realizing his error, Prospero rips off the red mask, revealing his own face.
The figure is not an emissary of Satan, but the Red Death himself, declaring that "When you look into the face of Death, you see yourself. Each man makes God for himself — his own heaven, his own hell."
Prospero attempts to flee through the now-infected crowd, but his red-cloaked self is always in front of him. The Red Death finally corners him, asks him, "Why are you afraid to die, Prospero? Your soul died a long time ago," and strikes him down.
In an epilogue, the Red Death is playing with his Tarot cards with a young child, smiling as he shows her a card. He then picks up the cards and puts the deck in his robes as other similarly cloaked figures gather around him, each wearing a different colour: the "Green Death", the "Yellow Death", the "Black Death", etc... They discuss among themselves the numbers of people each of them had claimed that day, each remorseful of their endless terrible task. When asked of his work, the Red Death says to them "I claimed many, only six remain." The cloaked figures then file offscreen in a grim procession.
