“And the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” Those are the closing words of the Edgar Allen Poe story on which this film is based. Starring Vincent Price as Prince Prospero, a noble who tries to avoid the plague sweeping his land by locking himself and his friends inside a castle and killing any locals who try to make their way in, Masque is overheated and spooky like all of the Poe movies made by Price and low-budget director Roger Corman in the 1960s (see also: The Pit and Pendulum, The Raven, House of Usher). Add a screenplay co-written by Charles Beaumont, who would go on to write almost two dozen episodes of the original Twilight Zone, and the saturated color cinematography of Nicolas Roeg, who would later direct the frightening Don’t Look Now (another film in which the color red plays a key role), and you’ve got yourself one heck of a medieval plague movie.
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