jdhb-768-61234 The Masque of the Red Death is a brilliant film. Vincent Price as the malevolent Prince Prospero lords it over his lands, friends, peasants and all, totally devoid of any compassion or sensitivity. Whatever or whoever comes his way is either used, abused or destroyed by a man who imagines his power to be absolute. Added to that, he is also a worshipper of Satan and uses his supposed satanic connections to bolster his powers over others.When confronted with peasants from a local village he abducts a naive and pretty young woman, Francesca, beautifully played by Jane Asher, and imprisons her father and beloved. In passing, he discovers that the dreaded 'Red Death', a terrible disease, is stalking his lands but thinks little of it believing himself to be immune behind the walls of his mighty castle and protected, as he believes himself to be, by Satan.As the film progresses, Francesca comes to know of Prospero's satanic rituals and also sees him as the monster that he is. He murders friends from behind the walls of his castle with as little emotion as he watches his falcon catch its prey. When his lover, Juliana, played rather quietly by Hazel Court, is thrown into an attack of jealously by the arrival of the pretty and much younger Francesca, she looks to regain Price's affection by taking the final steps in committing herself to Satan's cause, branding herself with an upside down cross, and then trying to help Asher escape. Of course, Price knows of this and Court, after enduring the horrors of a final gruesome ritual, pays the ultimate price for her treachery, while Asher is faced with losing either her father or her lover in a nasty game dreamt up by Prospero and which ends unexpectedly.Prospero engenders fear in his retinue, though there are still some who are prepared to risk his wrath. The dwarf, Hop Toad, who hates Prospero but can't escape him, encourages one, Alfredo, played by the always reliable Patrick McGee and Prospero's long-standing ally, to believe that there is a way out of Prospero's control; in reality, Hop Toad is forging a trap because of Alfredo's previous ill-treatment of Hop Toad's beautiful and equally tiny love, Esmerelda. McGee consequently finds himself in a most unfortunate costume at the Masque, or ball, of the title, and Hop Toad has his revenge which, perversely, also brings Prospero's admiration. By now, Francesca has become accustomed to Prospero's brutal nature and is barely moved by the appalling scene that she witnesses.When the surviving villagers arrive and beg for help from Prospero during the ball, they are met with disdain and murder, except for a child whom Prospero fears to kill. Prospero and his guests continue to enjoy their dancing and entertainment, but Death having stalked the village, finally arrives at the castle, where Prospero believes him to be Satan only to find that he is the bringer of the Red Death itself and is not anyone's servant. At the last, Prospero asks Death to spare Francesca, his one and only kindly deed, before his final realisation of the truth and his own death. The final scenes of the Masque, and Death walking past the assembled throng, is somewhat stagey but wholly in tune with the nature of the film.The ending sees the bringer of the Red Death united with various fellows who've brought their own plagues elsewhere. We learn that Francesca and her lover, Hop Toad and Esmerelda, the child whom Prospero declined to kill and an old man have survived the Red Death although thousands have died. The others have brought similar pestilence to their domains although there is no explanation as to why.The cast has a few regular names of 50s, 60s and 70s British films such as Nigel Green, Paul Whitsun-Jones and Patrick McGee but none appears to any great degree. The film is largely about Vincent Price, Hazel Court and Jane Asher with occasional interlopers. Nonetheless, it must be regarded as one of the finest horror films of its generation. It lacks the buckets of blood and gore, and CGI, of more modern horrors but is much the better for that. The horror is in the not seeing and not knowing, rather than in the 'in your face' action of today's offerings. There is menace, threat, fear and imagining rather than fire and brimstone.This film is as watchable today as it was when I first saw it some 50 years ago. It holds the attention throughout without resorting to anything too shocking. Asher's facial expressions tell the audience how horrible things are, and how immured she later becomes, without recourse to less subtle means. There is none of the 'hamminess' of many horror films of the era and Price is just superb, as is the direction of Roger Corman.In the end there is a message. "Each man creates his own heaven and his own hell", in other words, we live our own lives and create our own opportunities and disasters. No one else is to blame if we get it wrong.This can't be marked as a 10 (little can) but it's worthy of more than an 8; as 8.5 isn't available, I have to give it a 9. It's that good.

utahman1971 This is a horror movie and there is not one thing even to think it could be scary. What is wrong with people rating this high for a horror movie. It is like a dramatized play on a movie. I for one as using this movie an example of Price movies, it terrible and boring as heck. I can't see what people would rate this movie so flipping high, and rate actually more talking and action, lower than this movie.This one is not even a bother of watching all the way through. I never liked any of Price movies. Just can't see the fetish of Price. Same goes with John Wayne, and also Elvis Presley and so on. Well, to each their own. Good luck with liking these kind of movies.

thefinalcredits "Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long time."In moving his adaptations of Poe's classic tales of horror to the UK, Corman not only produced his best work, but also benefited greatly from the contributions of the likes of cinematographer, Nicholas Roeg. Loosely based on Poe's work of the same name, the film's screenplay amalgamated strands from two works by the master of horror, while also presenting a celluloid version of a 'morality play' not present in the original story. The presence of Charles Beaumont in the pair of screenwriters, given his prominence in the development of the feel of many episodes of the 'Twilight Zone', lends the movie its surreal yet captivating quality. From the outset, Roeg's influence can be appreciated with the 'Bergmanesque' appearance of Red Death in the mist-laden forest. Indeed, Corman delayed production of this movie due to the similarities to Bergman's 'Seventh Seal'. Moreover, one can witness Roeg's recent experience of working under David Lean on 'Lawrence of Arabia' in his masterful use of editing. Another important British contribution is that of musician and composer, David Lee, whose score for this film would be a career high point for the man responsible for Peter Sellers and Sphia Loren's hit, 'Goodness Gracious me'. It is amazing that this score, which so aptly adorns each scene of the movie, was completed in just three weeks from the man who would become one of the founders of JazzFM. Corman himself belies his reputation as merely a helmer churning out bare-bones 'B-movies' with the sumptuous artistic look of the piece. Though, he could be accused of attributing style more importance here than the pure mechanics of horror, which are given more vent in the rest of his films. The performance of Vincent Price can be ranked as one of his best, portraying the sadistic Prince Prospero, who holds court over the decadence and depravity of his rich guests, taking sanctuary from a pestilent disease decimating the impoverished peasantry outside the castle gates. His despotic nature reveals itself in the callous disregard he has for the lives of his subjects, and the relish he takes in seeking to corrupt the beautiful young ingenue played by Jane Asher, the girlfriend of McCartney at the time. By incorporating Prospero's satanism in the plot, and contrasting it to the young peasant girl's Christian beliefs, the director and screenwriters allow for an opportunity to recast Poe's story as a philosophical treatise on the nature of good versus evil. Price is in his element hinting at the malevolent deity he worships, in one memorable scene, stating: 'If a god of love and life ever did exist...he is long since dead. Someone...something rules in his place'. Prospero's growing fascination with the young girl leads to the growing resentment of the incumbent 'lady' of the castle, succinctly played by horror film regular Hazel Court. Her attempt to maintain her position by fully embracing the prince's satanic beliefs, and then offering herself as bride to his master, leads to a truly memorable dream sequence in which she is repeatedly sacrificed to the shaman priests of various cultures, before her own brutal death. Yet, the most terrifying scene belongs within the sub- plot based on another short story from Poe. In retribution for a mindless assault on his dancer girlfriend by one of the prince's malevolent guests, the court midget, Hop Toad, lulls the perpetrator into performing a party trick which will end in a truly horrific fiery end. In portraying the former, Skip Martin, and the latter, Patrick Magee, respectively complete a solid supporting cast . The denouement of the story is more faithful to Poe's original narrative in establishing that death comes equally to all, with a superb dance macabre where Red Death, voiced superbly by John Westbrook ( am I alone in thinking it was Christopher Lee), passes fatally among the castle guests before revealing his true identity to Prospero himself. The film does have obvious flaws, among which are firstly, the use of a child dubbed with an adult's voice to incarnate the midget dancer, and secondly, the countless opportunities afforded to Prospero to have sport with deciding the fate of the peasant girl's lover and father (played by Nigel West before he achieved more renown). Yet, the lasting impression, down to the final credits, is of a film which should be remembered as demonstrating Corman's unexploited potential as a true auteur.

BA_Harrison Call me a philistine if you like, but I've always found Roger Corman's lavish adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death a little too pretentious for my taste, much preferring the director's more trashy B-movie output. Here, Corman is under the illusion that he is Ingmar Bergman, presenting his tale in an art-house fashion that might look visually impressive (the photography by Nicolas Roeg is definitely eye-catching) but which actually proves surprisingly dull overall, despite the debauchery and decadence on display.Nobody plays loathsome quite like Vincent Price, and here he at his most despicable, as Prince Prospero, a Satan worshipping aristocrat who delights in corrupting the innocent. In the confines of his castle, he and his fellow deviants enjoy extravagant parties while outside the locals are dropping like flies of the red death, a plague that has been ravaging the countryside. Unfortunately, Price seems to get caught up in the whole ostentatiousness of the production, and delivers one of the hammiest performances of his career, which might be seen as parody if only the actor didn't seem quite so earnest.The ending of the film is particularly painful to watch, as Corman's pomposity goes into overdrive with an extended scene of death and suffering portrayed through the medium of expressive dance, followed by a blatant rip-off from Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Give me Attack of the Crab Monsters any day of the week.