Last Friday, Vincent Price was having a wizard duel with Boris Karloff.
Tonight, the jokes are over.
There is a plague outside the castle. There is a prince inside who believes wealth can protect him. There are masked guests drinking, dancing and pretending death belongs to somebody else. And somewhere among them is a figure dressed entirely in red.
Welcome back to the Terror Glow Drive-In.
Vincent Price Month continues with The Masque of the Red Death.
Earl has canceled tonight’s costume contest.
Apparently “mysterious red-robed stranger” is no longer an acceptable entry.
The Earl Rating
Feature: The Masque of the Red Death
Year: 1964
Best watched: Late at night, preferably somewhere without a locked castle gate
Scare level: 4 out of 5
Gothic atmosphere: 5 out of 5
Vincent Price menace: 5 out of 5
Chance Earl attends Prospero’s party: Lower than usual, thankfully
So What Is The Masque of the Red Death About?
The story takes place during a deadly plague known as the Red Death.
While people in the countryside are becoming sick and dying, Prince Prospero retreats behind the walls of his castle.
He brings wealthy guests with him.
There will be food.
Music.
Costumes.
Games.
And absolutely no concern whatsoever for the people outside.
Prospero believes the walls can keep death away.
That should already tell you how this is going to go.
Vincent Price’s Prospero is not simply selfish.
He enjoys power.
He enjoys making people afraid.
He enjoys forcing others to choose between terrible options.
And he treats suffering as entertainment.
When he encounters a young woman named Francesca, played by Jane Asher, he brings her into the castle and begins trying to convince her that everything she believes is foolish.
He has money. He has safety. He has servants. He has walls.
What could possibly touch him?
Edgar Allan Poe has entered the chat.
This Is Not The Raven
The shift from last week is almost comical.
The Raven gave us Peter Lorre complaining while magicians threw spells at one another.
The Masque of the Red Death gives us Prince Prospero calmly discussing cruelty while people outside his walls die.
Roger Corman clearly knew these movies did not all need the same tone.
That helps Vincent Price Month enormously.
Price could move from comedy to genuine menace without feeling like a completely different performer.
Here he is controlled. Soft-spoken. Confident. And awful.
Sometimes the quiet villain is worse.
Prospero does not need to wave a knife around.
He simply believes other people exist for his amusement.
Earl has crossed “rich medieval prince” off the list of possible concession sponsors.
Vincent Price Intermission
If The Raven showed you Vincent Price having fun, The Masque of the Red Death shows you what happens when he stops smiling.
Price plays Prince Prospero, one of the coldest characters in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe cycle.
There is very little camp here.
No friendly wink.
No sense that Price is inviting us in on the joke.
Prospero is cruel, arrogant and completely convinced that he is above the suffering happening outside his castle walls.
That shift is one of the reasons Vincent Price works so well.
He could be funny without becoming silly. Elegant without becoming stiff. And frightening without needing to shout.
By 1964, Price and Corman had already made several Poe-inspired films together, and The Masque of the Red Death became one of the darkest and most visually ambitious of the bunch. Turner Classic Movies calls it one of Corman’s most faithful Poe adaptations and notes that it also incorporates elements of Poe’s story “Hop-Frog.”
Earl has stopped making jokes about Price’s eyebrows.
For now.
Roger Corman Went Bigger
One of the first things you notice about The Masque of the Red Death is how much richer it looks than some of Corman’s earlier Poe pictures.
The colors are deeper.
The rooms feel larger.
The costumes are more elaborate.
The whole movie has a lush, strange quality.
Part of that comes from where it was made.
Production took place in England, and the film used existing sets from larger British productions. TCM notes that The Masque of the Red Death shot at Elstree Studios and benefited from standing sets left from films including Becket.
That gave Corman something he was very good at exploiting: Other people’s expensive stuff.
Earl respects this deeply. He has asked whether the drive-in can borrow the neighboring town’s Christmas lights indefinitely.
No.
And Then There Is Nicolas Roeg
The cinematography is one of the biggest reasons this movie looks different.
It was photographed by Nicolas Roeg, who later became a celebrated director in his own right.
Even if you do not know his name, you can feel what he brings to the movie.
Color matters here. Red matters. Yellow matters. Black matters.
The spaces inside the castle are not just backgrounds.
They feel like part of the story.
TCM specifically credits Roeg’s photography as a major reason the film is among the most visually striking of Corman’s Poe adaptations.
That is important because this entire story is about people trying to create a beautiful little world sealed off from ugly reality.
The castle is gorgeous. The costumes are gorgeous. The party is gorgeous. And death walks right through the front door anyway.
Poe would approve.
Earl has dimmed the concession lights. Atmosphere, he says.
We are now unable to see the hot dogs.
Who Is Prospero?
Prospero is fascinating because he never seems worried.
Almost everyone else in a plague story spends the movie panicking.
Prospero assumes he has already won.
He has money. Land. Servants. A castle. Guards.
He believes suffering is something that happens to peasants.
Price plays that arrogance beautifully.
Prospero does not run from death because he does not think death applies to him.
That is the trap.
The Red Death is not impressed by wealth. It is not impressed by power. It does not care how thick the walls are.
That is the heart of Poe’s story, and it is why the basic idea still works.
You can close the gate. You can throw a party. You can pretend everything outside belongs to somebody else. Death does not need an invitation.
Hazel Court Has Entered the Castle
Hazel Court plays Juliana, Prospero’s companion and another person caught in his strange world of cruelty, religion and temptation.
She is not simply decorative.
Juliana is ambitious. She wants power. She wants Prospero’s approval. And she becomes deeply involved in the darker spiritual side of his world.
Court had already appeared with Price in The Raven, but there is nothing playful about their scenes here.
Everyone in Prospero’s castle wants something.
Safety.
Status.
Approval.
Power.
That makes the castle feel less like a refuge and more like a trap filled with people competing for the best seat before the roof caves in.
And Then Poe’s “Hop-Frog” Shows Up
The Masque of the Red Death is not built solely from the title story.
It also borrows from Poe’s “Hop-Frog.”
That gives the film one of its crueler side plots.
A performer named Esmeralda and her companion are mocked and abused by Prospero’s guests.
One especially vicious nobleman treats them like objects for entertainment.
Eventually, that cruelty comes back around. In spectacular fashion.
TCM notes that the movie combines “The Masque of the Red Death” with elements of “Hop-Frog,” another Poe story centered on humiliation and revenge.
That second story fits because this movie is full of people laughing at suffering.
Until somebody stops laughing.
The Colors Matter
There is a famous sequence involving a series of rooms, each dominated by a different color.
Blue.
Purple.
Green.
Orange.
White.
Violet.
And finally black and red.
The effect is strange even if you do not know the original Poe story.
Each space feels less realistic and more symbolic.
By the time you reach the final room, the movie feels almost like a nightmare you walked into by mistake. And because Roeg photographed everything so deliberately, the colors do not feel like decoration.
They feel like warnings.
This is one of those movies where you could pause almost anywhere and find a frame that looks like a gothic painting.
Earl has requested a red room at the concession stand.
Absolutely not. We know how this ends.
The Party
Eventually Prospero throws his great masked ball.
His guests dance. Drink. Laugh. Wear elaborate costumes.
The plague remains outside.
At least that is what everyone tells themselves.
Then a figure appears. Dressed completely in red. Nobody remembers inviting him.
Prospero does not like this.
And for perhaps the first time in the movie, we get to watch his confidence begin to crack.
That is part of what makes the ending so satisfying.
Price has spent the entire film playing a man who believes he understands everything. Then something enters his world that he cannot intimidate. Cannot bribe. Cannot humiliate. Cannot control.
There are few things more enjoyable than watching an arrogant movie villain realize the rules apply to him after all.
Earl has quietly nodded.
Is It Actually Scary?
Yes.
Not because things jump out constantly.
They do not.
This is slower horror.
It sits in the room with you.
Prospero is frightening.
The disease is frightening.
The way the wealthy guests laugh while people suffer outside is frightening.
The final masked figure is frightening.
And the movie rarely gives you the relief valve The Raven did.
There is beauty everywhere. But there is also rot underneath it.
That makes the whole thing feel uneasy.
It is not a carnival ride like House on Haunted Hill. It is not a gimmick like The Tingler. It is not a comedy like The Raven. This one wants you to sit with it.
That is why placing it fourth in Vincent Price Month works so well.
By now you trust Price. Then he gives you this.
The Cheese Report
The cheese level is considerably lower tonight.
We still have:
A medieval castle.
Masked revelers.
Colored rooms.
Satanic rituals.
A mysterious red figure.
Dramatic speeches.
And enough gothic décor to bankrupt a Halloween store.
But the movie takes itself seriously.
And mostly earns it.
This is less melted cheese.
More expensive cheese served at a party where you have begun to suspect something terrible is happening upstairs.
Earl says cheese is cheese.
Fair point.
Does The Masque of the Red Death Hold Up?
Very well.
Possibly better than some of the lighter Corman-Poe movies.
The story is simple.
The themes are clear.
The colors are gorgeous.
The performances are strong.
And Vincent Price gives Prospero enough charm that you understand why people might follow him even while knowing perfectly well he is dangerous.
AFI lists the film as a 1964 Roger Corman production starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court and Jane Asher, with Nicolas Roeg as cinematographer. Production began in November 1963, and the film opened in Los Angeles in June 1964.
More than sixty years later, the basic image remains powerful:
A wealthy man locks himself inside a beautiful castle because he believes death belongs to other people.
Then the red figure appears.
You do not need much more than that.
Earl’s Verdict
Vincent Price Month has taken a turn.
No flying skeleton. No buzzing seats. No talking raven. No wizard duel.
Just Vincent Price standing inside a beautiful castle believing nothing can touch him. That may be scarier than all the monsters we have seen so far.
The Masque of the Red Death is stylish, cruel and surprisingly beautiful.
It gives Price one of his darkest roles of the month.
It gives Roger Corman one of his richest-looking Poe films.
And it gives us a reminder that the most dangerous person in a horror movie is sometimes the one absolutely convinced he is safe.
So park the car.
Clip the speaker onto the window.
Keep an eye on the masks.
And if someone dressed entirely in red walks past the concession stand… Do not ask Earl to handle it.
Earl has already locked himself in the projector booth.
Next Friday, Vincent Price Month comes to an end.
And we are going all the way back to 1953.
Wax figures. Dark rooms. 3-D. And one of the movies that helped turn Vincent Price into a horror icon.
House of Wax is coming to the Terror Glow.
Sources & Further Reading
- Turner Classic Movies — The Masque of the Red Death
- AFI Catalog — The Masque of the Red Death