"The Masque of The Red Death" [1964] Movie Review

 

"The Masque of The Red Death" is a 1964 movie starring Vincent Price, and is based off of two Edgar Allan Poe stories. The first is a story of the same name, and the second is "Hop-Toad". The character Hop-Toad and his dancer girlfriend Esmeralda are included into the story of  The Red Death, which actually seems to fit quite seamlessly. 

The movie is a perfect Gothic Horror film, that captivated me from the start. Vincent Price proved himself once again to be the superb Gothic icon destined to portray Poe's works. The two go hand in hand. 

The premise to the movie is that a Red Death is prophecy is about to come true, and in some way, Prince Prospero's reign of terror is to come to an end. The Red Death is a plague that isn't fully explained, but Prospero seems to be aware of the prophecy. He comes to a village and takes a girl named Francesca, to his castle. He also orders for her father and lover to be sent to his dungeon. 

Propsero, in the movie at least, seems to be some sort of athiest that believes god is dead, and in his place, he worships Satan. Francesca, a Christian, doesn't believe in his type of worship, but strangely, he doesn't kill her. He seems to believe that he can convert her. Either way, he keeps her at the castle to actually protect her from the plague that is afflicting the village.  

I don't want to spoil the whole film, in case someone hasn't watched it, but the plot was really well paced in my opinion, and the big reveal near the end was quite nice. I found that the incorporation of Hop Toad was really smart, and fit really well with the medieval setting that the movie already had.

While watching, I could see how this movie might have inspired Anton Lavey, from the main plot points about Satan, and Prince Prospero's dialogues about God, to there even being trapezoids on the door to Francesca's room. 

 

 

There was something very fascinating to me about the amount of candles used in the film, I think the colors used on the set were incredibly eye catching. The sets were very detailed and ornate, and looked like a real castle. I tried to find any information about where exactly they filmed, but it seems that everything was either borrowed from old movie sets, or created for the film, which is an amazing feat in itself.  

I found it funny, in a way, how the character Juliana burned an inverted cross into her breast, as a symbol of Satan. I didn't realize that this idea was in movies even back then. Of course, this is not a Satanic symbol, but actually St. Peter's Cross. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Saint_Peter ] Her death was really ironic, and I thought the way she came to her demise was very clever. It seemed that she got what she wanted. 

Looking through the newspaper archives, I was surprised to see that there weren't any reviews of the movie, when it came out in 1964. Of course, there were ads for the film, and it seemed to be advertised with the Boris Karloff film "Black Sabbath".

The movie seems to have inspired music in a few examples, such as the band, "And Darkness and Decay". At the end of the movie, the line from Poe's story is shown on screen: "And darkness and decay and the red death held illimitable dominion over all.". Which is at the end of the story too. The band's song "Scarlet Horror" seems to be about the film, judging from the lyrics, though the story might have influenced them too. 

 

Another example is the band "Bell Witch". They have a song called "Beneath The Mask", which uses a clip from the movie.  

 Overall, I really loved this film, especially with who was revealed to be wearing the mask at the ball. I highly recommend this movie, and gave it a 5/5 on letterboxd.