The finale is clearly the worst offender for this, its sort of the same, but not really, changed too much bottom line, and what's worse is the original materials ending is so much better, more eerie, so why did they alter it? I also (still) don't really get the final scene with the various coloured cloaked figures. Alas in this movie they haven't done this, I've read about the short story and this film simply doesn't come anywhere close and I find myself asking why, its not hard to do, pretty straight forward, and it wouldn't affect the padding they created and inserted. The original Poe story is pretty short and simple in its layout, obviously making a movie would require padding, but even then you can still make the main parts faithful. Right so here's my problem with this movie, the adaptation of the original source material. During the bash a mysterious figure cloaked in red appears and wanders through the castle rooms, the Prince follows and discovers its death himself come to take him away, along with all the other nobles. The Prince eventually accepts her pleading and takes all three back to his castle, the two men to be killed for entertainment at his big do, whilst the girl to be.his Satanic pet or whatever, I dunno, dude is married.Īnyway, In order to try and ignore the small nagging plague problem and remain safe, the Prince basically holes himself up his castle along with many other rich nobles and friends, and throws this lavish long party. He is confronted by two men that insult him, so he orders their deaths, but a young woman defends the men (the daughter of the older man, lover of the other) and begs for their lives.

Whilst visiting a small village he controls, the Prince finds the locals starving and sick, angry at him. During this age the land is stricken by a plague called the red death, no one is safe from its vile clutches. Set in medieval Italy (which is quite unique in itself), the tale follows the exploits of the cruel and powerful Prince Prospero who rules with an iron fist and also worships Satan apparently, because he really is that bad.

Thusly the movie is actually made up of two short stories by Poe, the second story being Hop-Frog. Being based around a short story by Poe there isn't really enough to stretch out into a movie, its quite obvious if you look up the original material. Corman adaptation of original Poe material number seven, again in conjunction with American International Pictures, and again with Vincent Price.

The masque of the red death online