The Masque of the Red Death is a loose adaptation of at least two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. In a land filled with a plague known as the red death, a Satanist Prince called Prospero rules over all. When some of the peasants that live in his village contract the plague, he orders his house sealed up with all his fellow nobles inside. He has abducted a girl from town named Francesca and had her father arrested along with a man named Gino who tried to defend her. There are two sub-plots as we follow Hop-Toad (from the story Hop-Frog, a personal favorite) and Esmerald, two dwarves who perform for the court and receive vile abuse for it. The other sub-plot involves Prospero's love interest, Juliana, striving to become a bride of Satan. Lots of evil things are going on, in other words.
This is one of those cool Roger Corman/Vincent Price collaborations that stand the test of time. Yes, there is a wonky drug trip sequence that is a bit dated but the rest should still work pretty well. Eye-popping color and all sorts of set design help make the movie stand out. The performances are arch and somewhat hammy but that is to be expected from such heady source material. There are also some moments of real horror like Hop-toad's revenge and the "choose your knife" scene where the captured men refused to fight one another. Not the scariest movie ever made but a lot of fun.
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