There are worse things to OD on
Imagine my delight when I finally came across a video store with a big stack o' Vincent Price films I hadn't yet seen. I felt like Bart in that one Simpsons episode - pleasure overload, pleasure overload!!!
I'd already heard about half of the script to this movie sampled in various songs by Entombed and Theatre Of Tragedy (kudos to the TOT gang for so skillfully editing several scenes into one thoughtful and chilling conversation). All the land is ravaged by the Red Death, a plague which turns the flesh red as blood before killing its host in throes of agony. The only sanctuary is the castle of Prince Prospero (a tights-clad Price), who, unfortunately for the peasant folk, is not disposed to saving the commoners. Prospero is the kind of guy who'll wheel into town almost running over a child, and when two men offend him, sentences them to death on the spot. Then, after an appeal of mercy from a woman to whom both are dear, he exercises that mercy by only killing one, of her choice. (Boo! Hiss! I love it!!!)
He's interrupted by the death screams of a Red Death victim, and thus packs up the girl (Jane Asher), her father and her brother to head off to his castle, where he's planning a ball with all of the local aristocracy. There, they will revel in delights Dionysian and degrading, all for the pleasure of Prospero, and most importantly, safe from the plague outside. Or are they?
Price is wonderful here, in one of my favorite roles of his. The "ice-cold bloodless villain" thing had been done before and has been done since, but I can't think of anybody doing it half as well as he. When a late-arriving couple pleads for sanctuary from outside the castle walls and the husband offers up his wife for it, an unimpressed Prospero coolly tells him "I've already had that doubtful pleasure," just before killing him. Oh, he gets a lot of great moments like this, like where he gets his audience to wallow in degradation for his pleasure. I think my favorite part is when he is asked where his two male captives are, to which he ambiguously replies "They are being quartered."
Prospero worships at the altar of Satan, and has a good time doing it, too. He's adored by all of his wealthy subjects (particularly Hazel Court, who burns an inverted cross into her chest, ah, Glen Benton, you unoriginal bastard), to the point where they will stoop to any degradation to please him ("How like a worm you are. Be one.").
There are some interesting ideas floating around here about both Satanic and Christian faith, and maybe I would've liked to have seen them examined a little more closely. One thing that is interesting is that the Satanic Prospero seems sincere and thoughtful in his belief, while the Christians just kind of move on their beliefs like clockwork, not really knowing WHY they believe. Nevertheless, Prospero is not the hero here, and one wonders what the filmmakers' intent was in this.
There are other things which are curious, like a ballerina girl which is clearly played by a little girl but given the voice of an adult woman. She's supposed to be a dwarf, but looking at her brings irresistibly to mind images of Jon-Benet Ramsey, making the goings-on in Prospero's court seem even more depraved than could ever have been intended!
This version of Masque is more dialogue-driven than the other that I've seen, more dialogue-driven than most films, for that matter. But that's good by me, I love a movie driven by good dialogue, especially if it sounds larger than life about topics I wish more people I knew were interested in talking about instead of yard care and how long they have to drive to get to work. ("Satan rules this world!" "He does not rule it alone.")
Adapted by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell and directed by Roger Corman; I have no idea what Corman was thinking but he produced a remake 25 years later with Adrian Paul and Patrick MacNee, and it sucked. Much seems lost in the pan-n-scan here, as characters frequently address people who seem just barely off screen, but that didn't dull my enjoyment of this movie one bit. (no, the only thing which DID dull it was this silly dream sequence late in the film, which I could have done without) (and how one man learns how to handle a sword as fast as a caveman learning to fly a Harrier)
Enthusiastically recommended to one and all, though you all have probably seen this before I did.
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