Shadowman4710
Roger Corman's lush and vivid adaptation of the Poe short story isn't perfect by any means but it's worth it for Vincent Price in top form as the diabolical Prince Prospero. Certainly worth the time for fans of Corman and Price.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/22/24
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g j
This is really a cut above most of Price's films. Everything feels lavish and elegant, and colour is used in a really engaging manner. It's also fairly well paced for a film of its time.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/18/24
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Jeff S
Terrifying premise. Classic performance from the great Vincent Price.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/24
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Nik75 J
Probably Roger Corman's best and most complete movie. Stylistically superb and intelligently written, the movie is a captivating step-up into the realm of film-making excellence for Corman.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/31/24
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Matthew B
Is Roger Corman a good moviemaker? Around a dozen of his movies (directed or produced) have featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, a TV show that riffs on bad movies. Corman established a reputation for cutting corners and churning out moderately successful films on the cheap.
Indeed it sometimes seems as if most of Corman's creative gifts were poured into how to ingeniously make a little go a long way. Films were made back-to-back using the same props, scenery, cast and crew. Some films have a sparsity of sets and actors that is positively amusing. Other films borrow images from earlier productions that Corman bought up. There is much to admire in Corman's talent for making so many films with so little money, and much to deplore about the quality of many of them.
Nonetheless there is something genuinely quirky and creative about Corman's earlier films. Some of them are deliriously bizarre. Then there are the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations, undoubtedly the jewels in Corman's crown, and some of the only movies that he took seriously. (I would add The Man with X-Ray Eyes and The Intruder, a powerful account of demagogic racism to this list. You may be able to think of others.)
The Masque of the Red Death is one of Poe's better stories, but not cinematic. In the story, a thousand nobles take refuge in the abbey of Prince Prospero, hoping to escape the ravages of The Red Death, a ghastly plague that has spread across the land. While the local population suffer, the nobles hold a masquerade where they dance hysterically trying to dispel all thought of the horrors outside, mistakenly believing that they will be safe here.
This is a great story, but insufficient for a movie. Corman's film develops the material in two ways. It is combined with another Poe story, Hop-Frog. Hop-Frog is a dwarfish jester who avenges himself on the king and his courtiers by immolating them after the king strikes his fellow-dwarf, the dancer Trippetta. Corman recognised the shared element in both stories – royalty and nobles who pay the price for disregarding the common people. Corman's jester is renamed Hop-Toad though.
Corman's other innovation was to make Prince Prospero a Satanist, a change from the original story that opens up the narrative in many ways. With this new information, there was much scope for developing new dialogue and scenes.
This is not the horror of a Val Lewton movie. There is none of the implicit and unseen fears that lurk behind films such as Cat People or I Walked with a Zombie. The horror is more graphic here. Bodies are covered in blood, or set on fire. Nonetheless the images are intended to disturb the imagination of the viewer, rather than provide visceral jump scares.
There are some grounds for deploring Masque. Is not the dialogue a little corny, the plot cheesy and Price's performance hammy?
Yet somehow Masque transcends such criticisms. The action does not take place on any realistic plane. It is entirely theatrical. The dialogue is deliberately high-flown, and includes a few lines that are startlingly beautiful: "I will take you by the hand and lead you through the cruel light to the velvet darkness." There are little dramatic flourishes. One scene change takes place when a character holds a tambourine in front of the screen and shakes it.
Then there are the sets that generate a certain mood, enhanced by the photography of Nicholas Roeg, who would later become a renowned director himself. The land outside Prospero's castle is murky and gloomy, a fearful world where characters stumble through an eerie wood that is possibly haunted. Set against this are the brilliant vibrant colours of Prospero's castle, a place that must seem comparatively safe and inviting to its guests.
Nonetheless even this place is sinister, with its billowing curtains, torture chambers, and a main hall dominated by a clock with a gong that tolls a mournful knell, and has a pendulum shaped like an axe, recalling another Poe story.
The most memorable part of the castle is the series of differently-coloured rooms through which Prospero and Francesca (Jane Asher) occasionally stride: a sudden burst of blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet, one after the other. Yet even here there is no sense of safety. Prospero explains that one of his ancestors incarcerated a man in the yellow room as an amusing experiment to see how this affected his feeling about the colour later.
At the end of this succession of coloured rooms is one that is entirely black, where Prospero tells Francesca she cannot enter yet. It is never explained what this room is, and I remain vague, even after watching the film many times. Death is clearly part of its meaning. It is the room where the Red Death finally catches up with Prospero. I suspect that it is also the room where Prospero and his lover Juliana (Hazel Court) carry out their Satanic rituals.
Viewing the film as a piece of theatre, Price's performance seems more well-judged than might first appear. Vincent Price's performance in Masque has the curious effect of altering the audience's sympathies. The actor's natural charm diverts us from the evils we see on screen. It would be too much to say that the audience wish to see Prospero win out in the end. His cruelty and savagery are never far from our sights.
How much of this was worked out by Corman, I am unsure. The film exists on an unconscious level, its ideas presented as a stream of dream-like images. The Masque of the Red Death may not be high art, but fascinating elements lurk below the surface, and it looks fantastic.
I wrote a longer appreciation of The Masque of the Red Death on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2019/10/18/the-masque-of-the-red-death-1964/
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
08/30/23
Full Review
John A
Perhaps the juiciness found in the Poe's source material would have been served better by a filmmaker with starkly contrasting artistic sensibilities (such as Argento or Brian De Palma). I have nothing against Roger Corman but this film isn't particularly scary, unnerving or viscerally thrilling.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
08/10/23
Full Review
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