‘If a god of love and life ever did exist… he is long since dead.’
The Masque of the Red Death is one of those names that’s been floating around my watchlist for years. Directed by indie legend Roger Corman and boasting horror maestro Vincent Price in front of the camera and cinematographer turned filmmaker Nicholas Roeg on cinematography duties, this Poe adaptation must surely join The Witch and The Others as one of the best period horror movies ever made…
Prince Prospero (Price) is a Satanist and landowner who orders a local village to be burnt to the ground following the discovery of a terrible plague sweeping the land, known locally as the Red Death. He kidnaps village girl Francesca (Jane Asher), along with her father (Nigel Green) and her lover (David Weston) and then proceeds to be a dick to all of them throughout the whole movie, safe in the knowledge that his Dark Lord will protect him from the pestilence taking hold outside his castle walls.
Price was already a horror veteran before this movie and he is genuinely unsettling here, taking what could have been quite a frivolous role and turning it into something terrifying. Asher also does well as Prospero’s muse, but it is Corman’s assured direction and Roeg’s inventive cinematography, coupled with Price’s sinister visage that really sells this movie. It should be cheesy. It should be dated. Instead, The Masque of the Red Death has more than earned its place within the horror canon as the best of Corman’s many Poe adaptations.
This is a rare example of when a number of disparate elements unexpectedly combine to create something truly special. Possibly the most purely entertaining horror film experience I’ve had in 2022.