The Masque of the Red Death (1964) - film review

12th Century Europe is being scourged by many plagues, the most fearsome of which is the Red Death.  When Prince Prospero learns that this plague has reached the villages surrounding his castle, he orders his men to burn them to the ground.  Before doing so, he takes one of the villagers, a young woman named Francesca, prisoner, along with her father and her lover – these three will provide the entertainment at a costume ball which Prospero intends to host at his castle.  Francesca’s pleas to Prospero to show mercy and release her fall on deaf ears.  He is a devout Satanist, and she is soon to be initiated into his diabolical cult...

Often cited as the best of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, The Masque of the Red Death feels less like a conventional horror film and more like an über-kitsch reinterpretation of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, not that that is necessarily a bad thing.  The vibrant use of colour in the sets and costumes, along with the high degree of stylisation in just about every department from acting to make-up, makes this one of Corman’s most striking films – a brave, but too obvious, attempt by the director to shake of his reputation as a perveyor of exploitation trash and recast himself as one of the art house elite.

Although the plot is silly and much of the dialogue toe-curlingly bad, Corman’s assured direction and Vincent Price’s deliciously camp take on villainy makes this one of the most compelling and enjoyable of the low budget horror films of this era.  You would never think, on the strength of her lacklustre performance here, that Jane Asher would go to become a major film actress.  By contrast, Patrick Magee relishes his role and comes close to out-classing Price as the principal baddy; where else would you see him burned to death in a monkey costume?

Whilst The Masque of the Red Death occasionally veers dangerously close to the abyss of pretentious over-indulgence, its eerie Gothic atmosphere, sinister quasi-religious undertones and Price’s chilling presence make it a classic of its genre, one that will remain a firm favourite with all fans of the horror genre.  The hysterical denouement offers the one truly frightening moment in the film, with Vincent Price literally scaring himself to death.  The very last scene (where the various coloured pestilences get together for a bit of a chinwag on a not very convincing heath) should, however, have been cut.  This would have been unbearably silly even in an episode of Monty Python.

© James Travers 2009

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