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.

I think this is a terrific classic that holds up brilliantly, and it's probably my favourite out of all the Hammer or Hammer-like movies that I've seen that have this particular theatrical look and acting style. It's still very compelling, the story is to me absorbing and the revelations impressive as they unfold. I find that more than any other themes that it's about, the picture seems to focus the most on that of the power of death, be it literal, metaphorical, or spiritual. Death is a concept that's hard to come to terms with, and in popular fiction throughout the ages we often see characters trying to weasel their way out of a date with the anthropomorphic personification of death by pleading with it, trying to strike a bargain, or failing that straight-up sealing themselves away and trying to avoid it all together, like the evil-spirited tyrant who features in this tale. It sees one such group of people holding up to escape death. And in this case it's a little different, because this isn't the typical skeletal reaper of souls in a billowing black cloak, but a very specific 'plague.' In fact it turns out there are many faces of it, a whole darn rainbow brigade of death! The effect of that closing scene could perhaps come have off as silly due to the bright colours contrasting with the solemnity of the moment if it wasn't all handled with such competence and awesome pathos. It's certainly a bit of an odd scene but I love it, it's very interesting and philosophical. I like the idea of Death not being good or evil neither god nor the devil, but a calm and ambiguous force of judgement. The movie stars the deliciously hammy and dashing Vincent Price as the wicked devil-worshipping Prince Prospero, and eventually as the Red Death himself. I find Price very impressive here, he's quietly commanding and cruelly villainous, but somehow also not an entirely unsympathetic character. A debauched clan of cavorting 'nobles' hide in a grand castle under the sway of Prospero while a horrific plague ravages the peasantry below. And when the Red Death does eventually show up in his fool's paradise, the prince is overjoyed because he believes it is his master Satan finally come to reward him for his life of ruthlessness as well as all the souls that he's corrupted in the devil's name, but he is sorely mistaken as Death informs him that he has already lost his soul piecemeal long ago through his evil deeds and beliefs, and that his day of reckoning has finally come. I also liked the actor who played "Hoptoad"(should really have been Hopfrog!), he had a great charismatic kind of voice, and the subplot of his character's revenge against the lecherous Patrick Magee was very well integrated into the rest of the movie. When I first watched it I was delighted to recognise that there were actually two Poe stories in one feature! The set designs and visuals are enchanting to look at, the colours really jump out at you. The ending where Red Death passes and spreads through the masqued ball is disorienting and magnificently staged. The overall effect of that climactic sequence is bizarre, but also beautiful and mesmeric to me... Thank you dearly, sorry if you don't care for my thoughts, but I've learned that for better or worse we each of us must all dance to the music of his own tune. One last thing, this movie also has got the coolest end credits that I have ever seen ever! Still a terrific watch and a wonderful movie.

So many of Vincent Price's movies involve the master in so much pain, hurt by the world in which he lived. This one is one of the better of the Poe pastiches. Here he plays the Prince Prospero, who has wild parties at his castle, while the riff raff live outside, dying from some bloody plague. What is great is the overconfidence of Price as he taunts and maligns and hurts people for pleasure. The Edgar Allen Poe story "Hop Frog" has been incorporated into this one. Since it was released in 1964, Roger Corman uses some rather surreal psychedelic stuff with fish eye lenses and red filters. We all know what is going to happen, but Price is a precious quantity to emotes all over the place. In his case he is forgiven.

Another addition to Roger Corman's series of movies adapted from Edgar Allan Poe stories casts Vincent Price as a Satan-worshiping medieval prince holding a party while a horrible plague ravages his fiefdom. I saw the movie as an allusion not only to the feudal system, but as an indictment of decadence in general, as Prospero tortures and humiliates people to entertain his guests. As for Jane Asher, she and Paul McCartney were an item in the '60s. My mom liked her so much that she cut her hair like Asher wore hers. Asher more recently appeared in the original version of "Death at a Funeral". Who ever would've guessed that there would be a link between Poe and the Beatles? Anyway, "The Masque of the Red Death" is a fun movie, and I suspect that they had fun making it.