DVD review
Directed by Roger Corman
Starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Usher, David Weston
Release date Out now

In Medieval Europe, the cruel Devil-worshipping Prince Prospero plans an elaborate masquerade ball from his castle while the Red Death ravages the land outside. But Prospero’s walls are not enough to keep out Death…

The Masque of the Red Death was one of several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s work that Roger Corman churned out in the 1960s (others included The Pit and The Pendulum, The Tomb of Liegia and The Raven). It’s an unusual and intriguing horror, and one of the true classics from Corman’s prolific career.

Roger Corman and Ingmar Bergman aren’t two names you often hear whispered in the same breath. Yet at times the exploitation king makes explicit reference to The Seventh Seal, most noticeably in a scene with The Red Death playing cards with a child (recalling Bergman’s iconic Death versus knight chess showdown). It’s one of the more existential of Corman’s pictures – though you still get men slicing their arms with poisoned daggers and a man in a monkey suit burning to death.

Vincent Price has great fun as the sneering Prince. Prospero may be a nasty piece of work, but you can’t help but warm to the rogue, whether he’s dishing out amusing homilies (“life is often ugly…”) or firing an arrow at an old friend at the city gates.

There are memorable performances elsewhere too, including Skip Martin as the dwarf jester Hop Toad and Patrick McGee as conniving nobleman Alfredo, though the film’s female characters are less interesting. Bafflingly Hop Toad’s dwarf wife is quite obviously played by a child and then over-dubbed by an adult!

The Masque of the Red Death is filled with both shocks and uneasy laughs (one oddball highlight features Prospero ordering guests to squirm on the floor like animals), and it benefits from striking set design and Nicolas Roeg’s lavish, colourful cinematography. Roeg obviously liked the idea of a mysterious, red-hooded character so much that he poached it for Don’t Look Now nine years later.

Unfortunately the disc comes with no extras. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 8/10
A strange and memorable movie, and a reminder of Corman’s accomplished filmmaking talents.