If you like Vincent Price this is a must-see, like the Pit and the Pendulum and the House of Usher. All these classics are directed by Roger Corman and Mr. Price just gives us some of his finest performances in these movies. In The Masque of the Red Death, an evil prince worshiping Satan and practicing Black Magic tries to lure an innocent beauty to the Left-Hand-Path. But in the end, the black magician is confronted by a force even more powerful than the Fallen Angel.Imho this is one of Roger Corman's and Vincent Price's finest moments. A must-see for the lover of classic horror movies.

I see several reviews on here making this film out to be some sort of Bergmanesque masterpiece. I don't see it that way. I found the characters rather uninteresting, including their final fates. There's no optimistic coda with the young lovers, and the only thing the film seems to have to say about the cruel Satan worshiping Prospero is "everyone dies eventually". Meh. It didn't strike me as scary or suspenseful at all. The only things I liked were that Jane Asher's quite the cutie, and Price gives a good performance.

This is a horror movie and there is not one thing even to think it could be scary. What is wrong with people rating this high for a horror movie. It is like a dramatized play on a movie. I for one as using this movie an example of Price movies, it terrible and boring as heck. I can't see what people would rate this movie so flipping high, and rate actually more talking and action, lower than this movie.This one is not even a bother of watching all the way through. I never liked any of Price movies. Just can't see the fetish of Price. Same goes with John Wayne, and also Elvis Presley and so on. Well, to each their own. Good luck with liking these kind of movies.

First time I saw this on TV on February 9th 1974 when young I thought it one of the best films I'd ever seen; after many repeat viewings over the decades since it's slipped down the list somewhat but is probably still in there somewhere. No doubt courtesy of the Spectacle Of The Rose Tint. Roger Corman directed a handful of memorable cod Poe horror films, I think this was his best, certainly the one for which I have the fondest memories.While the deadly Red Death disease rages in the countryside the weird guests of Count Prospero's castle think themselves safe, including the pure young girl her father and her lover who were abducted for pleasure from their village. Most of the human foibles and perversions portrayed passed me by until a bit older and unwiser, but by God they were all an ugly rotten bunch, even the goodies! Vincent Price as Prospero was at his prime hammiest, Jane Asher as the ingénue suitably straight and dull, Hazel Court even more outstanding than usual, the only downer was David Weston playing the dashing young wet rag. The photography and colour were superb, and using second hand sets and UK tax breaks all belied Corman's usual fairly low budget.Poe's very short story was excellent in its own way – this has very little in common with that but sorry I've always preferred to read Elsie Lee's official novel of R. Wright Campbell's and Charles Beaumont's marvellous screenplay. The film and the book of the film also have many amusing differences for instance the film inexplicably has six survivors to include an old man in the village and keeps Poe's parting words. The story concludes on orthodox moral lines but is a wonderful, sometimes disturbing ride. Corman's finest hour and a half by far.