The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Day 295 - 10/22/09 - Movie #295

BEFORE: (in affected British accent) Edgar Allan Poe was born outside of Boston - and so was I. Poe later moved to New York City - and so did I. Poe liked to drink, often to excess - and so do I. Poe liked science-fiction, hoaxes and cryptography - and so do I. Poe published dozens of short stories and poems - OK, so he's got me there. And he also married his 13-year old cousin...

All I can say is, tonight's movie better not feature Vincent Price burying someone alive. Again.

THE PLOT: A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.

AFTER: Price plays Prospero, who rules his medieval (?) land with an iron hand and very little mercy - he sees the peasants, and even his fellow aristocrats, as his playthings, but he can't do anything to combat a looming plague except to burn the infected villages and seal off his castle. The movie makes Prospero into a satanist (easier for the audience to realize that he's evil), which I'm pretty sure wasn't part of Poe's short story - Poe had a dark sensibility, but no love for Satan worship.

The film also incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe story, "Hop-Frog," in which a dwarf jester gets revenge on a noble by convincing him to come to the masked ball dressed as an ape in a very flammable costume. It works here because both Poe stories feature masquerade balls in a castle setting. Also, at one point in the film, a woman gets pecked to death by a raven, which of course was the bird that was the subject of his most famous poem.

Prospero feels that it's appropriate to party (like it's 1399) while a disease runs rampant through the land - but what happens when Death himself, in human form, shows up at the party? Some would say that the figure of Death is allegorical, representing the airborne disease that must have infiltrated the castle.

Vincent Price is more regal and evil here, less foppish and queeny than that milquetoast Roderick Usher, and the peasant girl is played by Jane Asher, who happened to be Paul McCartney's girlfriend at the time the movie was made. There's a bit more thriller and less filler - but it's still a cheap B-movie. It is, however, very appropriate to watch in this season of Halloween party-planning, mixed with concerns about a swine-flu epidemic. Ah, how history repeats itself.

That's enough out of Roger Corman and Vincent Price for a while...

RATING: 6 out of 10 tarot cards

SPOOK-O-METER: 5 out of 10 (for the personification of Death, and a man being burned to death)