Starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee and Skip Martin. Written by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell. Directed by Roger Corman, produced by Roger Corman and George Willoughby.

Prince Prospero (Price) invites a select group of rich, decadent nobles to take refuge in his castle as the Red Death plague ravages the surrounding countryside. Prospero abducts three local villagers, Gino (Weston), Ludovico (Green) and Francesca (Asher), takes them to his castle and plans to corrupt the innocent Francesca with the help of his consort, Juliana (Hazel Court on top form), who wishes to marry Satan. Prospero intends to force Gino and Ludovico to fight to the death as sadistic entertainment for the nobles, and a lavish masked ball is also planned… but a red-cloaked figure crashes this party and brings an end to the jaded revelry…

Vincent Price, as the satanist Prince Prospero, is excellent here, managing to be equal parts sadistic, theatrical and thoughtful. His character even manages to find a shred of goodness within himself at the end, when he asks for Francesca to be spared.

Nicholas Roeg provides the lush technicolor photography for this Roger Corman production, which has an eloquent screenplay, focusing on Prospero’s philosophical musings regarding the nature of evil and innocence, written by Charles Beaumont & R. Wright Campbell, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1842) and ‘Hop-Frog’ (1849) .

A dream sequence (during Juliana’s fatal betrothal to the devil) utilising expressive dance styles and the climactic masked ball are dealt with in an arty manner (too arty for some viewers, perhaps) that, I think, helps the film become simultaneously lurid & sophisticated.

The title sequences, at the start and at the end, are vividly-coloured and well-planned. They’re just some of the components that make this such a great-looking film. The series of different-coloured rooms in Prospero’s castle are visually striking, as are the hooded figures that personify the various plagues. These cloaked, humanoid representations of plagues are the closest the film comes to having monsters (and my excuse for reviewing THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH on the Monster Zone blog), though the film also treats us to a character dressed in an ape costume, who meets a fiery end.

This is my favourite Corman movie. Corman rated this movie as one of his favourites too, though he did complain at the time that the British crew was slow compared to US crews. He did, however, get to use impressive sets from Hal Wallis’ BECKET production and had sumptuous cinematography courtesy of Nicholas Roeg thanks to the fact he made the film in the UK.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH is imaginative, colourful and exceedingly re-watchable!

Lancer Books did a novelisation of the movie…

This is the comic book adaptation…

Finally, here’s an awesome Italian poster for the film…