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The Masque of the Red Death
Directed by	Roger Corman
Produced by	Roger Corman, George Willoughby
Written by	Charles Beaumont, R. Wright Campbell, Edgar Allan Poe
Starring	Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher
Cinematography	Nicolas Roeg
Distributed by	AIP Anglo-Amalgamated
Release date(s)	1964
Running time	90 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Masque of the Red Death is a classic 1964 horror film, directed by Roger Corman, based on the short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. It incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog." The film stars Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher and Patrick Magee.

The story is set in a semi-mythic medieval Europe. The corrupt Satanist Prince Prospero (Price) invites several dozen of the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. The local peasantry, or anyone that the Prince suspects of being infected by the plague, are killed by crossbow fire outside the castle walls.

Subplots include the attempted corruption of an innocent Christian village girl, played by actress Jane Asher, the revenge of a dwarf entertainer Hop-Toad upon the brute who abuses his beloved miniature mistress, and the damnation and death of Prince Prospero's consort Juliana. The film includes one of Corman's distinctive psychedelic dream sequences.

Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball, with the stipulation that no one is to wear red. At the ball, amidst a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, Prospero notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be an ambassador from his master, Satan, Prospero addresses him as "your Excellency". As the ball is transformed into a danse macabre, the red-masked figure asks why Prospero keeps calling him "your Excellency", declaring "I have no title." Realizing his error, Prospero rips off the red mask, revealing his own face.

The figure is not an emissary of Satan, but the Red Death himself, declaring that "When you look into the face of Death, you see yourself. Each man makes God for himself — his own heaven, his own hell."

Prospero attempts to flee through the now-infected crowd, but his red-cloaked self is always in front of him. Finally cornered, the Red Death asks him "Why are you afraid to die Prospero? Your soul died a long time ago", and is struck down by the Red Death.

In an epilogue, the Red Death is playing with his Tarot cards with a young child, smiling as he shows her a card. He then picks up the cards and puts the deck in his robes as other similarly cloaked figures gather around him, each wearing a different colour: the "Green Death", the "Yellow Death", the "Black Death", etc... They discuss among themselves the numbers of people each of them had claimed that day, each remorseful of their endless terrible task. When asked of his work, the Red Death says to them "I claimed many, only six remain."

• Edgar Allan Poe in television and film
• "The Masque of the Red Death"
• "Hop-Frog"

• The Masque of the Red Death at the Internet Movie Database
• The Masque of the Red Death - A Hollywood Gothique Retrospective

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• Therapy01 EP [1] at discogs