The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
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The Masque of the Red Death Movie Review
The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 horror film directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. It’s one of the better Corman Poe adaptations.
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“Why should you be afraid to die?
Your soul has been dead for a long long time“
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The evil Prince Prospero, a medieval Italian prince, devoted to the pursuit of evil and the worship of Satan, enjoys the high life in his eerie country castle as the Red Plague destroys the peasant population around him. Based on one of the best and most effective short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, this adaptation is similar to the other ones from this period, which means it is faithful in its essence, but enriched in details.
Naturally, you have to add more plot points to the short story to successfully adapt it to a feature-length format, but this was done for better and for worse. On the one hand, it made the story more epic and ambitious, but on the other hand, you lose the ambiguity and the thematic resonance and allegories of the story when you deal with it in such a straightforward, detailed manner.
Ultimately, the addition of this younger couple to the story worked as they were the only positive characters in a film that is very nasty and villainous in its roster. I wished for better development of the two, but at least they served their purpose plotwise. My problem lies more with the other side personalities, including the two dwarfs. They are fine on their own, but they don’t add much to the table, resulting in somewhat of a filler material.
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But Prospero himself was superb. Vincent Price was born to play roles like this and he was spectacularly over-the-top and sinister in it. He plays a prince that is so horrible that he’s very easy to hate, but he also plays the Red Death itself in a great twist that made the movie for me personally. That final confrontation was delightfully theatrical and fun.
The Masque of the Red Death is also technically outstanding. Not only does it feature a tremendous score that is fittingly medieval and eerie for the material, but it also benefits from excellent cinematography, rich production design and lovely costumes. This was clearly a cinematic movie, which is not something that you could say for some of the other film adaptations in this series. Here, the staginess was thankfully brought to a minimum.
The dialogue can be over-the-top, but also undeniably endearing in its own way. The ball itself was one of the best scenes in a film full of memorable moments, including that eerie opening. All the sequences with the Red Death were super effective and very cool. The use of the color red and all the other colors within this opulent castle was stupendous and the editing was excellent. I would have gone without that trippy dream sequence, which just felt like padding, but otherwise the satanic inclusions to the story worked and made it more occult.
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The Masque of the Red Death is a strong adaptation of one of Poe’s most effective short stories. Yes, some of the characters were unnecessary and the pacing was all over the place, but the dual performance from Vincent Price was delightfully over-the-top and sinister while the exquisite costume and production design as well as superb score and cinematography made the movie quite cinematic.
My Rating – 4
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