Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 2: today we are bringing you a classic. This is our
Speaker 2: episode on the Mask of the Red Death. This is
Speaker 2: the one directed by Roger Corman from nineteen sixty four
Speaker 2: starring Vincent Price. Let's see this episode originally aired on
Speaker 2: October twenty first, twenty twenty two. This is one of
Speaker 2: my favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, worth noting we put out this episode before
Speaker 1: Roger Corman passed away. He has of course since passed away,
Speaker 1: and this is one of his best, so please enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And we have an excite film to discuss this week
Speaker 1: and a perfect seasonal selection for Halloween. For us, it's
Speaker 1: to return to the filmographies of both legendary B movie
Speaker 1: director Roger Corman and the work of legendary actor Vincent Price,
Speaker 1: as well as the work of Hazel Court, who was
Speaker 1: also a devil Girl from Mars. This one is also
Speaker 1: an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation perhaps the finest one of
Speaker 1: several that Corman helmed, as well as one of the
Speaker 1: most well regarded films he directed. We're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about The Mask of the Red Death from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four.
Speaker 2: It's kind of amazing to see what Corman was capable
Speaker 2: of when he had just a little bit more money
Speaker 2: and like five weeks to direct a movie instead of
Speaker 2: two or three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, what if we had a little more time.
Speaker 1: What if we had five weeks instead of two. What
Speaker 1: if we had more money in the budget instead of less,
Speaker 1: And on top of that, what if we had British
Speaker 1: actors to fill in the rest of the cast as
Speaker 1: a pose to just you know, various actors from California
Speaker 1: of varying talent levels exactly.
Speaker 2: So this one isn't just good in the you know,
Speaker 2: the sense you might normally say some Corman movies are good.
Speaker 2: They're kind of like scrappy and fun, and you can
Speaker 2: see what they were able to pull off on bottom dollar.
Speaker 2: This one, I think is just straight up a good movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, this one's great. I love this film. This
Speaker 1: was my first viewing of it. I'd never seen it before,
Speaker 1: but i'd lined it up for us because I knew
Speaker 1: that it was very well regarded. I knew that it
Speaker 1: was going to be colorful, I knew that it was
Speaker 1: going to really showcase Vincent Price, and I was not
Speaker 1: disappointed in the least. This is definitely worth checking out.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a like a Corman connoisseur
Speaker 1: to enjoy this film. And even if you do just
Speaker 1: want something to go to have in the background, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want something that requires close viewing, It's still
Speaker 1: great because it's so colorful. It's so beautiful, especially the
Speaker 1: more recent releases of it that had been fully restored,
Speaker 1: and the movie just looks better than it's ever looked.
Speaker 2: The colors are amazing, the sets and costumes are amazing,
Speaker 2: like beautiful. I would also say this is a real
Speaker 2: standout role for Vincent Price, because I think this movie
Speaker 2: is often classified as high camp, and it is camp,
Speaker 2: but it's also more than that. There is a subtlety
Speaker 2: to it that I wasn't quite expecting when I went in.
Speaker 2: I thought it would be just you know, delicious Vincent Price,
Speaker 2: chewing of the scenery and all that, and so Price
Speaker 2: does play in a way a sometimes kind of hammy
Speaker 2: satanist aristocrat, but there's a little more to his performance
Speaker 2: than you would expect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything with really I have to give credit to
Speaker 1: both Price and the script, Like the script seems really solid,
Speaker 1: and so there's so many scenes, so many bits of
Speaker 1: dialogue where they're doing a thing that their films do.
Speaker 1: One example that I ended up paying close attention to
Speaker 1: is having some sort of a wise crack after somebody
Speaker 1: is viciously murdered at the behest of the of the
Speaker 1: tyrannical Prince. That's something that happens in this film. And
Speaker 1: often when this sort of thing happens in a movie,
Speaker 1: be it a like a Freddy Krueger movie or a
Speaker 1: typical horror movie, or like a James Bond film, you know,
Speaker 1: it's really hammy. It's it's a cheeseball moment, it's grown inducing.
Speaker 1: But when it happens in this film, it's it's not.
Speaker 1: It feels like just carefully calibrated so that it's not
Speaker 1: too hammy. It's just it's just sardonic enough and feels
Speaker 1: authentic within the picture and doesn't throw you out of
Speaker 1: the movie viewing experience.
Speaker 2: I think of the moment where Hazel court does the
Speaker 2: one of many ceremonies to get married to the devil.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many devil weddings. She marries Satan
Speaker 2: like four times in this movie, but I guess the
Speaker 2: final one where it's like, really for real now now
Speaker 2: it went through. She is a hell bride. The ritual
Speaker 2: ends with like a falcon pecking her face off, and
Speaker 2: her dead body is found and all the guests are
Speaker 2: standing around in horror. But then Vincent Price, he very coolly,
Speaker 2: just says, oh, there is nothing to worry about. She's
Speaker 2: just married a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's so perfect, the perfect delivery of the
Speaker 1: line doesn't come off as hammy. It's so good. There
Speaker 1: are also so many scenes where Vincent Price's character Prince Prospero,
Speaker 1: is giving some sort of a monologue about the nature
Speaker 1: of evil or darkness or pain, and it's become a trope.
Speaker 1: So many horror films, especially, you'll have some evil character
Speaker 1: telling us all what pains about or what horror is
Speaker 1: and so forth. And in this film, the way it's
Speaker 1: handled just puts most examples I can think up to shame.
Speaker 1: It's just handled so perfectly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about that
Speaker 2: there is a true I would say, going way way
Speaker 2: back and in fact even into the literature of the
Speaker 2: ancient world of the aristocratic figure who engages in perverse
Speaker 2: kind of morally undermining philosophical musings. I think this goes
Speaker 2: all the way back to like the Bible, where Pilot
Speaker 2: asks what is truth? You know, and you get scenes
Speaker 2: like this, and you know, stories all throughout the years.
Speaker 2: This is a really good example of it. Though it
Speaker 2: feels actually kind of thoughtful of Vincent Price's musings undermining
Speaker 2: you know, the good character's philosophical assumptions. They're actually kind
Speaker 2: of clever and more thoughtfully stated than usual.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it can. It can. Actually, it actually adds
Speaker 1: to the frightfulness of the film because as a viewer
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, man, Prospero is making some points here.
Speaker 1: Now I'm second guessing myself in my worldview. It's so good.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into all this some more as we
Speaker 1: proceed talking about the cast and the plot. As far
Speaker 1: as an elevator pitch goes, I was the only thing
Speaker 1: that came to mind for me, is what if a
Speaker 1: motion picture where a stained glass window in a cathedral
Speaker 1: of horror.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the colors in this movie are aggressive. There is
Speaker 2: such use of color and a large like blocks of color,
Speaker 2: you know, where like you have characters who are dressed
Speaker 2: all in red or all in white, and that is
Speaker 2: complemented by the fact that there are rooms that are
Speaker 2: entirely yellow or entirely purple, and it's it's just fabulous.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you'll question whether you've seen the color red before,
Speaker 1: if you've seen the color yellow before, because the colors
Speaker 1: don't seem as bright in the real world as they
Speaker 1: do in this film, which is something to say for
Speaker 1: you know, a gothic horror film, you tend to what
Speaker 1: you expect, the darkness and the grime and the shadows,
Speaker 1: and this film also brings some wonderful usage of those
Speaker 1: elements as well, but also these rainbow colors that are amazing.
Speaker 1: All right, on that note, let's go ahead and listen
Speaker 1: to I think just part of the trailer, the original audio,
Speaker 1: the original trailer for this film, because I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a good trailer. I'll explain why in a second,
Speaker 1: So just let's just hear a little of it to
Speaker 1: get a taste. So, yeah, I love this film, but
Speaker 1: this is not a good trailer. It spoils a lot
Speaker 1: of the film, and it's also just kind of an
Speaker 1: assortment of clips with minimal dialogue and.
Speaker 2: No narration that doesn't work so good for the show.
Speaker 1: No, and I don't think I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: a good trade. Even viewing it, it's not a good
Speaker 1: trailer in my opinion. However, the poster art for this
Speaker 1: film is amazing. If you haven't seen it, look it up.
Speaker 1: Its Prices face, you know, full sardonic price as the
Speaker 1: Prince Prospero in red, full red face composed. You look
Speaker 1: closer and you see that he's composed. His face is
Speaker 1: composed of all these red bodies intertwined with each other.
Speaker 1: It's poster art by Reynold Brown, who lived nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: through nineteen ninety one, who he did magazine covers and
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. But he was responsible for a
Speaker 1: slew of great movie posters from the day, including Tarantula
Speaker 1: and Black Sabbath. Also the really iconic poster for Attack
Speaker 1: of the Fifty Foot Woman.
Speaker 2: Beautiful poster. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A quick note on where to find this film, Well,
Speaker 1: luckily it's widely available in digital form, but we highly
Speaker 1: recommend the shop Factory Screen Factory restored four K blu ray.
Speaker 1: That's how we watched it. It features both the theatrical
Speaker 1: cut and an extended cut. And yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: beautiful looking film. Should be seen in the best quality possible,
Speaker 1: however you go about it.
Speaker 2: Agreed, you want the full buffet for your eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well let's get into the people involved.
Speaker 1: Like we said, this one was directed by Roger Corman.
Speaker 1: He was also one of the producers. Born nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: six as of this recording still with us. Roger Corman is,
Speaker 1: of course the Wizard of b Movies, a prolific generator
Speaker 1: of late fifties drive inflicks. On Weird House, we specifically
Speaker 1: discussed nineteen fifty seven's Not of This Earth as well
Speaker 1: as I'm not sure how many Corman productions of films
Speaker 1: that he produced. But someone else was directing this film, though,
Speaker 1: like we've been saying, is a different egg from any
Speaker 1: of those other films. Shot in five weeks, not two,
Speaker 1: shot for a higher budget and in England which also
Speaker 1: allowed for some tax breaks, and I understand, plus access
Speaker 1: to a better supporting cast. So this is a fine,
Speaker 1: if not the finest example of Corman's work as a.
Speaker 2: Director, showing that he could not only crank out a
Speaker 2: film on time I'm an on budget, but that he
Speaker 2: could actually be an artist as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is an artful movie. In fact, apparently
Speaker 1: that was one of the criticisms after it came out,
Speaker 1: like it didn't it didn't perform quite as well as
Speaker 1: the main producers in the production company wanted. And they
Speaker 1: were like, well, it was probably too artsy. It was
Speaker 1: reaching a little too high for the audience, which for
Speaker 1: weird cinema, that's a good thing. That's a good sign,
Speaker 1: all right. Now. Obviously this is based on not only
Speaker 1: one Edgar Allan posts toy, but two. It's based on
Speaker 1: both The Mask of the Red Death and Hot Frog.
Speaker 1: Ed Grelan Poe lived eighteen oh nine through eighteen forty
Speaker 1: nine American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic, best remembered
Speaker 1: though for his spooky poems and stories. And I was
Speaker 1: looking into some of the adaptations. There's been just so
Speaker 1: many adaptations of post stories over the years. The earliest
Speaker 1: cinematic adaptation of his work was apparently nineteen oh eight
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes and the Great Murder mystery based on Poe's
Speaker 1: non Sherlock Holmes novel Murders in the Room Morgue. But
Speaker 1: the reason that they're.
Speaker 2: Funny though, I do think I do think it's the
Speaker 2: case that Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired to write the
Speaker 2: Sherlock Holmes stories by reading Poe's Murders in the Room Morgue.
Speaker 2: So I think Poe sort of gave rise to the
Speaker 2: detective genre in a way.
Speaker 1: Hmm. Oh interesting. So they're countless adaptations again, they're still
Speaker 1: cranking out Poe adaptations, but this is in part due
Speaker 1: to one key reason and a key reason that this
Speaker 1: film was green lit, and that the other Quorman Poe
Speaker 1: films were green lit. All the works were in public
Speaker 1: domain by this point, So yeah, I think the other
Speaker 1: selling factor was, like they're teaching this in schools. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows Edgar Allan Poe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they saw money on both ends, Like
Speaker 2: so you wouldn't have to pay for it because now
Speaker 2: it's in the public domain, and because it's part of
Speaker 2: school career ricula, there's already a built in audience for it.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like, you know, the producers today
Speaker 2: who would rather make a new entry in an existing
Speaker 2: franchise than do a totally original film, because existing franchise
Speaker 2: has a built in audience. Except in this case, they
Speaker 2: don't have to pay for the rights to that franchise.
Speaker 2: It's public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, I mean it's still I think it
Speaker 1: is still taught in schools. I certainly have a strong
Speaker 1: memory of encountering Poe in the classroom, and I remember
Speaker 1: going to see a dramatization of The Telltale Heart as
Speaker 1: part of a school group and being really impressed by that.
Speaker 2: Though it's funny, most of this, of the actual narrative
Speaker 2: content of this film is not in the post story.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is essentially an original, a totally original
Speaker 2: plot based on just kind of loosely based on a
Speaker 2: scenario described by Poe.
Speaker 1: So getting into the screenwriters that were responsible for this,
Speaker 1: the main one really to highlight here is Charles Beaumont,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty nine through nineteen sixty seven, and
Speaker 1: he was a pretty big and pretty influential name and
Speaker 1: speculative fiction of the day. He pinned numerous horror and
Speaker 1: sci fi stories, as well as multiple classic episodes of
Speaker 1: the original Twilight Zone series, titles such as The Howling Man, Static, Miniature,
Speaker 1: Printer's Devil, and Number twelve Looks Just Like You, and
Speaker 1: many of these were adapted from his own stories. He
Speaker 1: also did film screenplays, including nineteen fifty eight's Queen of
Speaker 1: Outer Space, sixty two's Night of the Eagle, also sixty
Speaker 1: two's premature Burial, and The Intruder, which was based on
Speaker 1: his own novel, nineteen sixty three's The Haunted Place in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four's Seven Faces of Doctor Lao. The other
Speaker 1: writer on this screenwriter is R. Wright Campbell, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven through two thousand, American screenwriter and author
Speaker 1: who worked on such films as nineteen fifty seven's Man
Speaker 1: of one Thousand Faces, nineteen fifty eight's Teenage ca Caveman,
Speaker 1: and nineteen sixties The Night Fighters.
Speaker 2: As we said, the screenplay here is very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah so yeah, tip of the hat to both these gentlemen.
Speaker 2: But more than anything else, this movie is about Vincent Price.
Speaker 1: That's right, Vincent Price playing the role of Prince Prospero.
Speaker 1: He lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three, American acting royalty,
Speaker 1: active on screen from the late thirties to the early nineties.
Speaker 1: Just I mean everything is great about him, great voice,
Speaker 1: great look, great mustache, horror icon. But was active in
Speaker 1: various genres throughout his career, especially early on in his
Speaker 1: career and then later, you know, especially by the time
Speaker 1: of these po films, he was really cemented as the
Speaker 1: horror guy, and then towards the end of his career
Speaker 1: he was kind of played more of the celebrity game,
Speaker 1: doing celebrity appearances, product endorsements, which we've had some fun
Speaker 1: discussing already on the show. And you know, by this
Speaker 1: point in his career he'd very much earned that.
Speaker 2: Yeah cameos, you know, you could to do the narration
Speaker 2: and thriller, or to be in commercials for the No
Speaker 2: Jelly Bars, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The no Jelly Bars, or yeah, go on the Muppet Show,
Speaker 1: host the Muppet Show. Go for it. So if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about Vincent Price, go back and
Speaker 1: listen to our episodes on Doctor Fibes and also Scream
Speaker 1: Scream Again. This film, however, is a better showcase for
Speaker 1: Poe than either of those. He's great in those films,
Speaker 1: but in this you just get pure villainous Price, just
Speaker 1: top shelf stuff.
Speaker 2: Totally agree.
Speaker 1: Now, another actor that's in this one that we've previously
Speaker 1: discussed in the show. Hazel Court plays Juliana hazel Court
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty six through two thousand and eight, British
Speaker 1: actor and early horror queen, a star of Hammer Horror
Speaker 1: as well. There are films include The Curse of Frankenstein
Speaker 1: from fifty seven, The Man Who Could Cheat Death from
Speaker 1: fifty nine, Doctor Blood's Coffin from sixty one, and sixty
Speaker 1: three's The Raven. She was in a Devil Girl from Mars.
Speaker 1: Most recently, that's what we talked about her. That's the
Speaker 1: film we covered where we we're discussing her. On TV,
Speaker 1: she appeared on both The Twilight Zone and Thriller And Yeah,
Speaker 1: in this she is the consort of Prince Prospero, who
Speaker 1: is almost one hundred percent on board with the whole
Speaker 1: worship of the Prince of Darkness thing. But even when
Speaker 1: she's all in, Prospero is more interested in the corruption
Speaker 1: of innocence.
Speaker 2: You kind of get the sense that, well, maybe we
Speaker 2: should describe her role after we describe Jane Asher.
Speaker 1: That's right. Jane Asher plays Francesca Asher was born nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six as of this recording, and still still very
Speaker 1: Much Alive British child actress who transitioned into quite a
Speaker 1: career as an adult. Some of her most notable films
Speaker 1: include Deep In from nineteen seventy, Alfie from nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: and Death at a Funeral from two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: As a child, she also she appeared in such titles
Speaker 1: as nineteen fifty seven's The Quartermass Experiment. She was also
Speaker 1: pretty famous for being Paul McCartney's muse for a number
Speaker 1: of years, inspiring such songs is here, there and everywhere.
Speaker 2: So in this movie, Jane Asher plays this peasant girl, Francesca,
Speaker 2: who is brought to the palace of Prince Prospero because
Speaker 2: Prospero sees her moral goodness, her Christian piety and her innocence,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I gotta corrupt that, I gotta turn
Speaker 2: her over into Satan. And she has an interesting relationship
Speaker 2: with the character Juliana played by Hazel Court, who you
Speaker 2: get the sense was once in Francesca's place like she
Speaker 2: herself maybe was once a morally good, faithful, faithful Christian
Speaker 2: who was innocent as well, but has for some time
Speaker 2: now been corrupted and turned to the dark side of
Speaker 2: the force. Now she is all in for Satan, and
Speaker 2: when Prospero shows up with a new innocent person to
Speaker 2: corrupt and add into the coven, Julian is kind of jealous.
Speaker 2: You can feel how you can like she feels snubbed,
Speaker 2: and for some reason I felt kind of like I
Speaker 2: felt a strong sympathy for her in that that Prospero has.
Speaker 2: Now there's somebody more innocent to corrupt, and he's just
Speaker 2: moved on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as with everything in this film, there's so much
Speaker 1: more nuanced than a lesser film would give this scenario,
Speaker 1: and so many other films you can imagine, yeah, here's
Speaker 1: your villain, here's the bad girl, here's the good girl.
Speaker 1: Bad guy wants to do bad things to the good girl.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, that's, I guess, a pretty simple recipe for
Speaker 1: a horror movie or what have you. But in this yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bit more complicated than that. Like she's Francesca
Speaker 1: is not quite a mere damsel in distress. Like as
Speaker 1: she's being corrupted, it's like she has agency in her corruption.
Speaker 1: You get the sense with both these characters, it's not like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: he overpowered me with his suave evil. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: there's a sense that they have listened to the argument
Speaker 1: for darkness and have been overcome by how pervasive that
Speaker 1: argument is. Yeah, but if you want a simplistic here
Speaker 1: in your film, well, this film's got one as well,
Speaker 1: and that is the character Geno Gino, Gino, Gino, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gino Gino, play by Dave David Weston born nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2: We were talking before we recorded about how a dumber
Speaker 2: version of this same story would have made Geno the
Speaker 2: main character, because he is sensibly like the young male hero.
Speaker 2: You know, he gets to sword fight, he gets to
Speaker 2: be dashing and courageous, but he's not the main character
Speaker 2: of this movie. In fact, none of the good characters
Speaker 2: are the main character. It's such an interesting way to
Speaker 2: arrange the drama that really the main character of the
Speaker 2: film is the villain, and there are heroes, there are
Speaker 2: good characters to root for, but they're all secondary characters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's this is something that I think would
Speaker 1: definitely work for so many modern viewers because it's what
Speaker 1: we've actually come to expect with like Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: and so many other properties where the characters in the
Speaker 1: forefront are the flawed characters and the complicated characters and
Speaker 1: sometimes the outright villains of the piece. And like on
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, for an example, a character like like
Speaker 1: Gino here would be would be in the background, would
Speaker 1: not be the major character. And that's the case here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's overshadowed by various other characters, and the film is
Speaker 1: largely more concerned with weirder and more complex figures as
Speaker 1: opposed to this typical babyface. He's still important to the plot,
Speaker 1: but he is not the main focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's likable as a character. I mean, even
Speaker 2: though he's not as complex as some of these other ones.
Speaker 2: But he's got a kind of righteous defiance in the
Speaker 2: face of Prospero's tyranny. That's it's hard not to get behind.
Speaker 2: Like when you very first meet him, Prospero's in his village,
Speaker 2: you know, just sort of looking down on everybody and
Speaker 2: condescendingly saying, oh, thank you for all the grain, and
Speaker 2: Gino gets right up in his face. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're gonna eat all our grain while we starve.
Speaker 1: David Weston Shakespeare is is of this recording. He's still alive.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's active anymore, but he was a
Speaker 1: Shakespearean actor. Accomplished actor of stage, TV and screen. He
Speaker 1: apparently acted in twenty nine of thirty seven shakespeare plays.
Speaker 1: He appeared in the nineteen sixty four film Beckett, as
Speaker 1: well as multiple episodes of Doctor Who, during the William
Speaker 1: Hartnell era as the human Nicholas Muss and during the
Speaker 1: excellent Tom Baker era is a thrall by the name
Speaker 1: of beer Rock, which appears to be a kind of
Speaker 1: lion man. I haven't seen these episodes in particular. He
Speaker 1: was also in the Don Sharp film from nineteen sixty four, Witchcraft,
Speaker 1: opposite Lawn Cheney Jr.
Speaker 2: Now, most of the scenes that Gino is in, he's
Speaker 2: sort of part of a duo. They were like the
Speaker 2: two men that Francesca cares about. They are Gino but
Speaker 2: also her father Ludovico, played by Nigel Green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nigel Green is Ludo here. Green Live nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: four through nineteen seventy two British actor who appeared in
Speaker 1: a bunch of films, including sixty four as Zulu, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five's The Ipcris File, and nineteen sixty three's Jason
Speaker 1: and the Argonauts, in which he played Hercules okay. Other
Speaker 1: films include nineteen seventy one's Countess Dracula, sixty five's The Skull,
Speaker 1: and his final film was a nineteen seventy three adaptation
Speaker 1: of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which he
Speaker 1: plays the Green Knight opposite. Looks like a really good
Speaker 1: cast of the likes of Robert Hardy, Ronald Lacey, and
Speaker 1: Richard Harndel Rald Lacey.
Speaker 2: He's the Nazi in Indian and Raiders.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's the man in black with the Peter Laurie
Speaker 1: esque character in Raiders.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, yeah, tote yeah, the officer who melts gloriously
Speaker 2: at the end. Now we've said that, of course, Price
Speaker 2: is Prospero in this movie is thoroughly evil, but he's
Speaker 2: also kind of complex and kind of interesting and comes
Speaker 2: off as a more thoughtful brand of evil. On the
Speaker 2: other hand, there are just like straight up, you know,
Speaker 2: mustache twirling evil creeps in this movie, and a great
Speaker 2: example of that is Alfredo.
Speaker 1: Yes, played by the accomplished British state actor Patrick McGee
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen eighty two. This
Speaker 1: guy has a very recognizable face and build. Alfredo is
Speaker 1: a blunt object of a villain, and the McGee had
Speaker 1: the physicality to back that up. He did a lot
Speaker 1: of horror films, but he also pops up in a
Speaker 1: a number of other works. He was in two Stanley
Speaker 1: Kubrick films, A Clockwork Orange in seventy one and Barry
Speaker 1: Lyndon in seventy five. He was in William Friedkins's The
Speaker 1: Birthday Party from sixty eight, nineteen seventy's Cromwell. He was
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one's Chariots of Fire. But he also Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in a ton of horror movies, including Lucio
Speaker 1: Fulchi's nineteen eighty one film The Black Cat, nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two's Demons of the Mind, the nineteen seventy two Amicus
Speaker 1: film Tales from the Crypt, sixty five's Die, Monster, Die,
Speaker 1: and Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia thirteen from nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out if I've seen Fulchi's Black Cat.
Speaker 2: I don't think I have.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've seen that one now, But now
Speaker 1: you have a reason to because Alfredo's in it.
Speaker 2: Alfredo is so slimy, you just you hate him. From
Speaker 2: the moment you see him, and then everything he does
Speaker 2: makes it even worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has a number of interactions with Vincent Price.
Speaker 1: But he's also very much the villain of our B plot.
Speaker 1: We have a B revenge plot and it involves both
Speaker 1: Alfredo and a character by the name of hop Toad.
Speaker 2: Hop Toad is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hop Toad is really good. And the thing is
Speaker 1: this whole B plot with hop Toad, which is based
Speaker 1: on the Edgar Allan Poe eighteen forty nine story hop Frog.
Speaker 1: This would, I think be otherwise maybe a forgettable distraction
Speaker 1: in the film. You might find yourself saying, well, this
Speaker 1: is okay, but when are we going to get back
Speaker 1: to the main plot. Except the character playing hop Toad
Speaker 1: is so good, played by Skip Martin who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight through nineteen eighty four. This is a short
Speaker 1: stature British actor born Derek George Horowitz, and not to
Speaker 1: be confused with I think there's some other actors and
Speaker 1: musicians who use the moniker Skip Martin. But yeah, he
Speaker 1: plays this character that like so much in the film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can imagine a version in which this is just
Speaker 1: a straight up you know, like evil dwarf sort of
Speaker 1: a character or something. But with the Skip Martin's hop Toad.
Speaker 1: You know, he's charismatic, he's believable as a human character
Speaker 1: while at the same time being whimsical and of course
Speaker 1: having a just vicious revenge plot in motion. So he's
Speaker 1: he ultimately is one of the highlights of the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Skip Martin is wonderful in this. It's so
Speaker 2: hard not to love him even when he's even when
Speaker 2: his revenge on a nasty character for a nasty act
Speaker 2: turns extremely brutal. I don't know, it just doesn't really
Speaker 2: bother you. It's just like, good job, good job, hop Toad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the Prince Prospero's response as well. It's like
Speaker 1: that as good good give him a tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, give him a reward for burning one of my
Speaker 2: guests alive.
Speaker 1: Skip Martin wasn't in a ton of films, but he
Speaker 1: was active through seventy five and during the sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies he was in a number of mostly horror films,
Speaker 1: the likes of The Hell Fire Clubs, Psycho Circus, Vampire Circus,
Speaker 1: Son of Dracula, and Horror Hospital. But yeah, during that
Speaker 1: time he got to work in pictures with names like
Speaker 1: Price Cushing, Lee, Patrick mcnead, Diana Rigg, some great names,
Speaker 1: and many of these Like, it's not just he was
Speaker 1: in the same picture with him and he had screen
Speaker 1: time with them. He was interacting with some great actors
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, skip Martin's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Now this is Mask of the Red Death, and there
Speaker 1: is a character that is the Red Death or with
Speaker 1: the Man in Red. I think he's referred to in
Speaker 1: different different ways, but this is an uncredited performance by
Speaker 1: an actor by the name of John Westbrook who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two through nineteen eighty nine. He also worked
Speaker 1: in Corman's Poe follow up to this film, The Tomb
Speaker 1: of Legia. He was the voice of Treebeard in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: And he also apparently did a lot of work with
Speaker 1: radio plays and audio books, which should come as no
Speaker 1: surprise because he has this really rich, velvety voice.
Speaker 2: When he first spoke, I was like, it's Christopher Lee,
Speaker 2: and I really thought it was him until I looked
Speaker 2: it up and it's not Christopher Lee, but he sounds
Speaker 2: enough like him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very Christopher Lee esque. It has that, like,
Speaker 1: that rich quality to it. It's a voice that can
Speaker 1: go head to head with Vincent Price in these scenes.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I like the way the character is written
Speaker 2: as well. He is very economical with his words. He
Speaker 2: speaks often in very pointed, clipped sentences that are extremely
Speaker 2: ominous and effective.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now we mentioned how beautiful this film is just
Speaker 1: wonderful to watch, and a lot of that also has
Speaker 1: to do with the cinematography, which is the work of
Speaker 1: Nicholas Rogue, who lived nineteen twenty eight through twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: This is a name that should ring a bell with
Speaker 1: a number of you.
Speaker 2: It totally made sense how good this movie looked when
Speaker 2: I realized he was the cinematographer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he served as a cinematographer on a number of films,
Speaker 1: and not only this, but also nineteen sixty six is
Speaker 1: Fahrenheit four fifty one. But he's probably best known as
Speaker 1: the director of such films as the nineteen seventy one
Speaker 1: outback thriller Walk About nineteen seventy threes. Don't look now,
Speaker 1: I know that's one you've mentioned before, Joe, Oh, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's a horrifying film. Is extremely good.
Speaker 1: And then on the tripier end of the spectrum, he
Speaker 1: directed nineteen seventy six as The Man Who Fell to Earth,
Speaker 1: starring David Bowie. Other films of note include nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: The Witches and I was surprised I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about this, but yeah, his later career has moves around
Speaker 1: through different genres. I mean there's, for instance, there's some
Speaker 1: there's se erotica in there, but then there's also a
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six mini series of Samson and Delilah with
Speaker 1: a really solid cast. The production designer on this was
Speaker 1: also someone of note. Daniel Holler born nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: We've talked about him before because he directed nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: The Dunwich Horror Oh.
Speaker 2: With Dean Stockwell, Sander Die and Ed Begley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very fun film. Go back and listen to
Speaker 1: the past Weird House episode on that if you're interested.
Speaker 1: That was a Lovecraft adaptation. But Holler also directed in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five Lovecraft adaptation Die Monster Die, starring Boris Karloff.
Speaker 1: He did some biker films, he did some TV work,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he was the production designer on this film.
Speaker 1: And then finally the music for this film is the
Speaker 1: work of David Lee born nineteen twenty six. This is
Speaker 1: one of those scores that is not necessarily the kind
Speaker 1: of thing I would seek out to listen into in isolation,
Speaker 1: But for this film, it's really solid. I think it's
Speaker 1: really effective. It evokes a nice Gothic cinema sensibility for
Speaker 1: the time period.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, especially in the final scenes, like in the
Speaker 2: confrontation between Prince Prospero and the Red Death as the
Speaker 2: dancers are circling, the music gets intense and it's very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David Lee was slash. He is a prominent pianist
Speaker 1: and a ranger who also composed for film, TV and
Speaker 1: a lot of television ads apparently, and I think he's
Speaker 1: also a novelist. This was probably his biggest film that
Speaker 1: he composed for, but he did at least a handful
Speaker 1: of film scores, including nineteen sixty three's The Very Edge,
Speaker 1: which has been sort of on my radar before because
Speaker 1: it's one of the very few genre films to star
Speaker 1: Jeremy Brett, who is famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1: But when you look around for like weird psychotronic films
Speaker 1: that Jeremy Brett was in. There aren't very many contenders.
Speaker 1: The Very Edge is one of the very few. Probably
Speaker 1: not a film we'd necessarily tackle on Weird House, but
Speaker 1: it stood out to me.
Speaker 2: Before Well, are you ready to discuss the plot of
Speaker 2: this American international picture. Let's do it once again. A
Speaker 2: Corman movie for aip coming in hot with an awesome
Speaker 2: credit sequence design. Even some of his you know, drive
Speaker 2: in b movies had great looking credits, and these are
Speaker 2: also great in a way that I can understand by
Speaker 2: some of the producers may have been seen as too
Speaker 2: artsy FARTSI, but I think it's wonderful. So we see
Speaker 2: like the mask of the red death title, but in
Speaker 2: the background there is a growing splatter of red, as
Speaker 2: if blood. But the red splatter actually doesn't look exactly
Speaker 2: like blood, because it doesn't look like the splashing of
Speaker 2: round droplets, and instead it looks more like some kind
Speaker 2: of fibrous growth like hairs or filaments or branches of blood,
Speaker 2: and it gradually spreads and spreads across more of the
Speaker 2: screen until the red holds illimitable dominion.
Speaker 1: Overall very fitting.
Speaker 2: Now we open on one of my favorite things, a
Speaker 2: spooky indoor for outdoor set. I'm about ninety percent sure
Speaker 2: that's what it is. I'd say more than ninety This
Speaker 2: is almost definitely an indoor set. But it looks amazing.
Speaker 2: Fog drifting through the darkness, dead tree limbs, and an
Speaker 2: atmosphere that's just like so heavy you can feel it.
Speaker 2: And then you see a peasant woman wrapped in rags
Speaker 2: climbing a hill covered in soft earth. And what ran
Speaker 2: through my head looking at this is the Thomas Hobbes
Speaker 2: description of life without civilization. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,
Speaker 2: just a desolate view of life. And then we see
Speaker 2: the peasant woman walk up to the top of the
Speaker 2: hill and she walks around collecting deadfall. She's gathering twigs
Speaker 2: I guess to burn, until she finally wanders past a
Speaker 2: dead tree and a figure cloaked in red, and the
Speaker 2: man in red is sitting cradled in the roots of
Speaker 2: the dead tree, and he calls out to her. He says, grandmother,
Speaker 2: come closer, and she does, and he produces a white rose,
Speaker 2: and then he waves his hand over it and the
Speaker 2: white rose turns red, and then he hands her the
Speaker 2: flower and says, take this to your village and tell
Speaker 2: the people the day of their deliverance is at hand.
Speaker 2: She bows to the man in red, takes the rose,
Speaker 2: and totters off on her way. This cannot be good,
Speaker 2: but we immediately oh sorry, no, no.
Speaker 1: No, it's just yeah, it's it's it's such a great saying.
Speaker 1: It's very uh, it's played seriously, and yeah, this does
Speaker 1: not bode well for the village. We know what he's
Speaker 1: getting at. He's like, here's some, here's some here's a
Speaker 1: brand new disease for your grandma.
Speaker 2: Go share this with the rest, right, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's gonna go viral, you know. The what's also not
Speaker 2: good for the village is a visit from the Prince.
Speaker 2: He's going to ride in to speak to people, and
Speaker 2: the Prince he's a reckless driver for one thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess he's not driving, but he it seems like
Speaker 2: he has instructed the carriage driver do not mind if
Speaker 2: there are children playing in the street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get the great it's seen where there's a
Speaker 1: child there in the path of the carriage and our
Speaker 1: hero Gino has to run into the street and scoop
Speaker 1: up the child to keep the child from me. And
Speaker 1: just run over by the Prospero Express here and.
Speaker 2: Then we get a Price reveal. One of the soldiers
Speaker 2: pulls back the curtain from the carriage and there's Price inside,
Speaker 2: wearing a funny hat and glittering gold raiment, just a
Speaker 2: beautiful outfit, standing amidst all these poor peasants. And he
Speaker 2: comes out and he thunders to them, according to my custom,
Speaker 2: I have come here personally to thank you for the
Speaker 2: year's harvest and to invite you to a feast to
Speaker 2: be held in a fortnight when annually I gather about
Speaker 2: me the nobles of the countryside. So he's being generous,
Speaker 2: it seems he's offering that they can come up to
Speaker 2: a feast at his castle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know they get to look at these
Speaker 1: fabulous costumes. This is the first of so many costumes
Speaker 1: that Vincent Price wears in this film.
Speaker 2: But Gino is not going to stand for this farce.
Speaker 2: He you know, he says, oh, come to your castle.
Speaker 2: He gets up in Price's face and he says, when
Speaker 2: you'll throw us the scraps from your table as if
Speaker 2: we were dogs, And Price says, exactly, But these dogs
Speaker 2: have a loud bark and show their teeth.
Speaker 1: Why.
Speaker 2: And I love this moment, especially because it reminds me
Speaker 2: of my favorite part of Superman two where Lex Luthor
Speaker 2: says something vaguely disrespectful to Terrence Stamp as General Zod,
Speaker 2: and then Zod replies, why do you say this to
Speaker 2: me when you know I will kill you for it?
Speaker 2: But the young man explains why he's got more bark
Speaker 2: than usual. He says, well, an old woman from our
Speaker 2: village met a holy man up on the hill and
Speaker 2: he made a prophecy. He said, the day of our
Speaker 2: deliverance was at hand. So the stranger in red his
Speaker 2: message has now spread to the village.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have much to lose. They're embolded by
Speaker 1: prophecy now, and so at least a couple of them
Speaker 1: are standing.
Speaker 2: Up right, and they interpret the prophecy of deliverance as
Speaker 2: deliverance from Prospero's tyranny. Yeah, but pro Prospero is kind
Speaker 2: of amused. You know, he's giving them the Terence Stamp
Speaker 2: and then he just instructs his soldiers to garat them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it turns his back on them. It's a
Speaker 1: cold moment. He is a cold villain in this scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're saved. At the last moment, a beautiful
Speaker 2: young woman from the village intervenes. She runs to Prince
Speaker 2: Prospero to beg him for mercy. She says, mercy in
Speaker 2: the name of God. And here we get a kind
Speaker 2: of surprising turn. Prospero so far is just a brutal,
Speaker 2: narcissistic tyrant, so you would think he would just say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, garat her too. But when one of his
Speaker 2: soldiers throws the young woman to the ground and Prospero
Speaker 2: slaps the soldier and rebukes him, he says she was
Speaker 2: addressing me, so he seems interested by her plea for mercy.
Speaker 2: She introduces herself as Francesca. This is Jane Asher, and
Speaker 2: Francesca is a disheveled and dirty to show she's a
Speaker 2: poor peasant. But she also has a huge cross on
Speaker 2: her neck to show that she is pious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big silver cross, cleanest thing in the whole village,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: Yes, And she begs forgiveness for these two men. But
Speaker 2: is Prospero going to listen? Prospero, he says, you know,
Speaker 2: he does not forgive. He gives a speech about how
Speaker 2: if my hound bites my hand. I cannot, you know,
Speaker 2: let it go undisciplined. However, at the same time, having
Speaker 2: seen the film already, in this scene, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: You can see the gears turning in his head. He
Speaker 2: seems so taken with her innocence and her selfless. Please
Speaker 2: for help for these two men. You can see him thinking, Wow,
Speaker 2: this humble Christian would be perfect for my satanic coven.
Speaker 1: So he almost immediately starts playing the mind games here
Speaker 1: with her.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he tries to negotiate. He's like, okay, one
Speaker 2: of these guys, you want to say, if one must die,
Speaker 2: but the can live, and you have to choose. But
Speaker 2: she explains she can't choose because one of them is
Speaker 2: her father, Ludovico, and the other Gino is the man
Speaker 2: she loves. This is also the moment where, incidentally, we
Speaker 2: get the first line from Alfredo the Creep. He's this
Speaker 2: sniveling aristocrat who leans in and he's all excited about
Speaker 2: the entertainment. He goes, can such eyes have evan known sin?
Speaker 2: And then Price says they will, Alfredo, they will. So
Speaker 2: Francesca has to choose, but she can't. And just when
Speaker 2: you think they're going to force her to choose. They're
Speaker 2: interrupted because a scream draws them to a nearby hut
Speaker 2: in the village. Prospero goes to investigate the scream, and oh, boy,
Speaker 2: guess what time it is. It's Red Death time. It's
Speaker 2: a lady who's, like, you know, laying there trembling. She
Speaker 2: turns her head over and screams, and her face is
Speaker 2: splattered with red blood and pockmarks. And this is the
Speaker 2: way the Red Death is depicted in the movie. Price
Speaker 2: knows what he's looking at. He's like, that's the Red Death.
Speaker 2: We've got to get out of here immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, all right, pack these three individuals of
Speaker 1: interest up and just burn the town to the ground,
Speaker 1: burn everything else.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's almost as an afterthought when they're leaving. Well, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said, he says, okay, take these three to
Speaker 2: the castle. These two guys, we're going to send them
Speaker 2: to the dungeon. Francesca is going to come with me,
Speaker 2: because again I think he's thinking, Francesca is a total
Speaker 2: goody two shoes. We've got to get her some heavy
Speaker 2: metal records and win her over for the Lord of Darkness.
Speaker 2: So they're leaving, and then prosper is like, yes, by
Speaker 2: the way, kill them all. Such a villain, so cold,
Speaker 2: So they head off to the castle. The poor village
Speaker 2: is consumed by flames, and here we go to the
Speaker 2: secluded palace of prosper where we will spend pretty much
Speaker 2: the entire rest of the movie. Prosper sends out notice
Speaker 2: to his other wicked aristocratic friends that they must come
Speaker 2: to the castle and shelter with him and tend a
Speaker 2: large festival masquerade ball. They're going to party through the plague.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he warns them don't go visit that town
Speaker 1: that I just had to burn to the ground. Though
Speaker 1: if you do that, you can't come inside.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep. Now Prospero here introduces Francesca to his
Speaker 2: consort Juliana. Again this is Hazel Court from Devil Girl
Speaker 2: from Mars, and together they are going to turn Francesca
Speaker 2: to the dark side of the forest. Price like. There's
Speaker 2: a scene where Price says, hey, you're wearing a cross
Speaker 2: around your neck. Are you a true Christian believer? And
Speaker 2: Francesca says yes she is, and he says, well, you
Speaker 2: can't wear that. Nobody's allowed to wear a cross in
Speaker 2: this castle, you must never wear it again. And here
Speaker 2: in this scene we start to get the conflict between
Speaker 2: Juliana and Francesca. As we talked about earlier. Juliana is jealous,
Speaker 2: I get, you know, she already got corrupted and turned evil,
Speaker 2: and now Prospero has a new friend to satanify and
Speaker 2: he's she's feeling left out.
Speaker 1: Now this is where we get that scene with the bathtub. Right,
Speaker 1: they take her to the h the most gloriously over
Speaker 1: decorated bathtub you've ever seen with what are these golden
Speaker 1: swans or are they angels?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Well, they're probably not angels. If they're
Speaker 2: in Prospero's palace, they might be devils. I don't think
Speaker 2: they're probably birds or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some sort of winged creatures. It's just splendid a
Speaker 1: royal regal bathtub. And yeah, they're like, all right, you
Speaker 1: got to get in there and get yourself cleaned up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, and we're also we're in Juliana is instructed
Speaker 2: to you know, dress Francesca basically like make her appropriate
Speaker 2: for the palace, give her a fancy dress and everything. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: we get to see all of the wicked partygoers hanging
Speaker 2: out at the at the castle here doing odd stuff.
Speaker 2: I didn't quite understand this, But is Alfredo playing a
Speaker 2: game where he sticks a knife in people's mouths?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess so does It isn't a good introduction
Speaker 1: to just how brutal and direct he is. Prince Prospero
Speaker 1: is all about these strange, dark, philosophic mind games, whereas
Speaker 1: Alfredo just wants to stick knives in people's mouths that
Speaker 1: sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And Vincent Price wanders through the room and kind of
Speaker 2: disses Alfredo, and then he gives a monologue about what
Speaker 2: is terror? And everybody's following him around as he's showing
Speaker 2: off the awesome sets. There's like a big gear driven
Speaker 2: clock with an pendulum shaped like an axe. I think
Speaker 2: that might be a nod to the pit and the pendulum,
Speaker 2: And people follow him around and he's like, what is terror?
Speaker 2: But eventually this ends in the scene where we first
Speaker 2: meet hop Toad in Esmeralda.
Speaker 1: Aka Tiny Dancer. They do they refer to as tiny
Speaker 1: Dancer multiple times?
Speaker 2: Oh they do literally yeah yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Okay,
Speaker 2: So these are two little people who are dancers in
Speaker 2: the court and As they're dancing Esmerelda accidentally knocks over
Speaker 2: Alfredo's wine goblet. First of all, Alfredo, why was your
Speaker 2: goblet on the floor? What was it doing there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, that's you're just asking for you You can't
Speaker 1: be mad at a child or a tiny dancer for
Speaker 1: knocking over your wine if you're keeping it on the
Speaker 1: floor next to your boot.
Speaker 2: Alfredo is, of course a violent jerk, so he slaps her,
Speaker 2: and instantly we get the look of death from hop
Speaker 2: Toad at Alfredo. There's going to have to be some
Speaker 2: revenge here. All of the nobles are wicked, but Alfredo
Speaker 2: just sucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no imaginable viewer of this film who's like,
Speaker 1: I think they were too hard on Alfredo.
Speaker 2: So Prospero announces that on the upcoming Sabbath at midnight,
Speaker 2: there will be a masquerade, and he says all the
Speaker 2: wardrobes of the castle are yours to use. So all
Speaker 2: the guests dress up how you like, but I beg you,
Speaker 2: even for the humor of it, do not wear red.
Speaker 2: So we'll have to remember that no one is allowed
Speaker 2: to wear red at the masquerade. Oh and I forgot
Speaker 2: about this price. Just randomly throws his wine glass in
Speaker 2: Alfredo's face at the end of the scene. I don't
Speaker 2: know what prompts that, but it's really funny, and Alfredo
Speaker 2: is clearly mad, but he can't do anything about it, right.
Speaker 1: He makes as much of a threat as he can muster,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Price again lectures his guests on how they're
Speaker 2: all very lucky to be there at his house, because
Speaker 2: otherwise they'd be outside the castle walls dying of the
Speaker 2: red death. And then they present Lady Francesca. They have
Speaker 2: dressed up this peasant girl who looks like she is
Speaker 2: a noble herself, and I think they're trying to initiate
Speaker 2: her to the evil debauchery of the satanic aristocratic lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And then Vincent Price walks around mocking all of his
Speaker 2: guests and humiliating them. He walks up to a guy
Speaker 2: and he's like, how like a pig you are? B
Speaker 2: one makes him crawl around on the floor, pretending to
Speaker 2: be a pig and oinking, And then he does this
Speaker 2: to a bunch of people. He's just humiliating all of
Speaker 2: them by forcing them to be animals.
Speaker 1: But they also, for the most part. You do see
Speaker 1: some looks of embarrassment from here and there, like one
Speaker 1: of the characters wives and all, but there's also a
Speaker 1: sense that they're like, yeah, I am now liberated to
Speaker 1: just be a pig, Like that's who I am. Do
Speaker 1: what thou wilt. I will thank you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I like being a worm. Yes, thank you, sir,
Speaker 2: I am a worm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He does several of these, and he's like, and for
Speaker 1: the rest of you, yeah, use your imagination be for animals.
Speaker 1: And everybody just goes with it.
Speaker 2: He says, show me the lives and loves of the animals. Now,
Speaker 2: one of the next sequences that we have to talk
Speaker 2: about is our introduction to the sequence of monocolored rooms
Speaker 2: like the yellow room, and then the purple room, and
Speaker 2: then the white room and the black room.
Speaker 1: Yes, these rainbow rooms that are all attached to each other.
Speaker 1: These are some of the visually most impressive sequences in
Speaker 1: the film. These are used multiple times. So this is
Speaker 1: our first introduction to it, where Prospero is bringing her
Speaker 1: through and describe it. First, describes the yellow room as
Speaker 1: one that was you that his father, I believe, had
Speaker 1: used to drive somebody insane, like put him in here
Speaker 1: for an extended period of time, and when they were
Speaker 1: finally let free, they could not even glimpse the sun.
Speaker 1: Like the yellow of this room made the sun horrifying.
Speaker 2: It drove them insane. Yeah, and so he's describing these
Speaker 2: twisted experiments done on people, and he explains it by saying,
Speaker 2: somewhere in the human mind is the key to our existence.
Speaker 2: My ancestors tried to find it, to open the door
Speaker 2: that separates us from our creator. So Price is an
Speaker 2: interesting kind of satanist here. He's not just seeking power
Speaker 2: and pleasure like a lot of movie satanists. He is
Speaker 2: seeking a kind of understanding. He wants like a metaphysical
Speaker 2: discovery about the truth of existence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a much the satanism in this film. It's
Speaker 1: easy to build up your expectator, to build a certain
Speaker 1: expectation for satanists in your genre movies. You know, you
Speaker 1: expect bloodthirsty murder rituals, You expect a little bit of
Speaker 1: monster worship in there, And there's maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of both of those in this but for the most part, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is this more philosophic approach, Like Prospero is not
Speaker 1: really looking to worship any monster gods. He's not caught
Speaker 1: up in all of that. This is not like the
Speaker 1: devil rides out. But he seems to see this as
Speaker 1: an avenue toward darkness that makes the most sense in
Speaker 1: a world consumed by darkness. And that's a lot of
Speaker 1: what this whole sequence is about him describing this quest,
Speaker 1: this philosophy, and it's really well executed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He argues the classic the problem of evil, you know,
Speaker 2: he's trying to disprove her faith, and he says, how
Speaker 2: can you believe a god of goodness rules over this
Speaker 2: world given all of the death and decay and the disease,
Speaker 2: the red death itself, And he finally says, if a
Speaker 2: god of love and life ever did exist, he is
Speaker 2: long since dead. Someone some thing rules in his place.
Speaker 1: And this is some This feels like some hard stuff
Speaker 1: for the early nineteen sixties, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Francesca wants to go into
Speaker 2: the final room in the sequence, the Black Door, and
Speaker 2: he suddenly stops her. He says that room is not
Speaker 2: open to you, and she asks, is there's something to
Speaker 2: fear in that room? And he says, for the uninvited,
Speaker 2: there is much to fear, and Prospero himself looks afraid
Speaker 2: of what's behind the last door in the black room. Now,
Speaker 2: after all this, we go onto a scene between Vincent
Speaker 2: Price and Hazel Court. Juliana, of course, is still jealous
Speaker 2: of the peasant girl. She's trying to, I think, regain
Speaker 2: her spot as like the the apple of Vincent Price's eye.
Speaker 2: And she says, you know, I've been an eager student
Speaker 2: of Satanism, but I've held back from the final ceremony.
Speaker 2: I'm ready now for the invocation. I am ready to
Speaker 2: become the bride of Satan.
Speaker 1: And he's a little sly about this, and this is like, oh,
Speaker 1: of course you are now, because you want to protect
Speaker 1: your status. Yeah, and she's like, no, no, I really
Speaker 1: I am, I'm really, I'm ready. I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to marry Satan.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So later that night, Francesca wakes up and she
Speaker 2: wanders from her bedroom and wanders about the spooky empty
Speaker 2: halls at night until she stumbles in. She goes into
Speaker 2: the final room, the black room, and witnesses an evil
Speaker 2: right taking place, and like Vincent Price is in a
Speaker 2: coffin with his eyes closed like a vampire, and Hazel
Speaker 2: Court is bathed in red light, wearing a crown and
Speaker 2: sitting in a throne next to a raven. And so
Speaker 2: the first time I saw this, I assumed, Okay, so
Speaker 2: this is the ceremony, right, this is the one where
Speaker 2: she becomes the bride of Satan. But no, something else
Speaker 2: is gonna happen with Hazel Cord after this, so she's
Speaker 2: not quite there yet. Francesca just gets freaked out seeing
Speaker 2: all this. I think when Vincent Price opens his eyes
Speaker 2: from the coffin, she screams and runs away.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was left unsure if this was a dream
Speaker 1: or if this was something that was really taking place,
Speaker 1: and she's she witnessed it.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, I think it's real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is one of the ceremonies perhaps, or
Speaker 1: this is Satanic nap time. This is just what a
Speaker 1: little night nap looks like. I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's another scene following this that's interesting, where Price is
Speaker 2: doing falconry, like he has a you know, the leather
Speaker 2: glove and the falcon, and he sends it up to
Speaker 2: catch your bird, and he explains to Francesca that your
Speaker 2: God has blinded you like a trainer blinds a falcon
Speaker 2: in order to submit its will to his And then
Speaker 2: he goes on to say, my master and his followers
Speaker 2: look about the world with open eyes, and Francesca says,
Speaker 2: your master, And if it wasn't already obvious, he hasn't
Speaker 2: directly told this to Francisca yet, but finally he admits it.
Speaker 2: He goes, my master is Satan, the Lord flies, the
Speaker 2: fallen angel, the devil. His hat in this scene, by
Speaker 2: the way, is good.
Speaker 1: Yes. My only regret is that I did not count
Speaker 1: the costume changes that Prince Prospero goes through in this film.
Speaker 1: Each costume is more magnificent than the last.
Speaker 2: Now, there's a scene where a noble arrives at the
Speaker 2: palace at the gates outside, begging to come inside. But
Speaker 2: I don't think I caught at first the reason why
Speaker 2: Price wouldn't let them in. But I think the second
Speaker 2: time I watched it, I realized it's because he and
Speaker 2: his entourage had been to the village where the Red
Speaker 2: Death was. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That was my understanding. Yeah. They're like, hey, we're here
Speaker 1: for the we just came from that city with the plague,
Speaker 1: and Prospero is like, mm mmm, no, you.
Speaker 2: Can't come in. This guy's name is scar Lotti. He's
Speaker 2: got a big yellow feather on his hat and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: please please let us in. I'll do anything, and Price
Speaker 2: welcomes them with a crossbow.
Speaker 1: Bolt, yeah, shoots him dead.
Speaker 2: Also, let's check back in with the men that Francesca
Speaker 2: was so desperate to save, with Gino and Ludovico. They
Speaker 2: are down in the dungeon. They're being trained in sword
Speaker 2: fighting under the premise that they are going to have
Speaker 2: to fight to the death in front of Prince the
Speaker 2: Prince's guests for entertainment, and they obviously don't want to
Speaker 2: do this, but the main guard forces them to by
Speaker 2: sort of like prodding at at Gino with the sword
Speaker 2: until he fights back. There are some moments of very
Speaker 2: floppy fake swords in this scene.
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time, like the scene where
Speaker 1: this brutish guard who I didn't get the gentleman who
Speaker 1: played this role, but it's a he's effective, as is
Speaker 1: this brutish guard who who's just like like, Gino's like,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna kill me. You want me to fight
Speaker 1: fight my girlfriend's father to the death, and he's like yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'll cut you a little bit and the scenes
Speaker 1: where he's cutting him, like, I feel I felt the
Speaker 1: sting of those Like, I'm like the Loretty, they look
Speaker 1: really good. I'm like, that's gonna get infected.
Speaker 2: Well, what do you know, Gino is kind of a
Speaker 2: natural at sword fighting. Yeah, what could you expect?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he turns the tables on him, and this is
Speaker 1: when Prospero comes in, and he has, as he often does,
Speaker 1: he wanders in and he instantly sums up the wisdom
Speaker 1: of the scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, it is a true fact that the
Speaker 2: greatest swordsman in Italy would not fear the second greatest,
Speaker 2: but would fear the worst, for that one would be unpredictable.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, Gino and Ludovico both pledge that they will not
Speaker 2: fight each other, so Prospero resolves to make them to
Speaker 2: sort of punish them or make them face death in
Speaker 2: some other ingenious way. He's gonna have to come up
Speaker 2: with a plan after this. There's more religious and philosophical
Speaker 2: back and forth between Prospero and Francesca on God and
Speaker 2: the Devil and so forth. Prospero says that his ancestor,
Speaker 2: who lived in this castle was a member. He was
Speaker 2: for the church. He was a torturer for the Inquisition.
Speaker 2: And he says, you know, Satan is not a god
Speaker 2: of hate, but a god of reality, a god of truth.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's not a story the Jedi would tell you.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, that's a good part.
Speaker 1: But it is a great that. I mean, both are
Speaker 1: great scenes of subtle and intelligent seduction to the dark side.
Speaker 1: Like it's not just like, hey, don't you want to
Speaker 1: do evil or do evil or else. It is let
Speaker 1: me explain to you the wisdom of this alternate point
Speaker 1: of view. Let me unsow your eyes so that you
Speaker 1: may see the world right.
Speaker 2: So Price says, you know, I don't want to hurt you,
Speaker 2: my dear. I just want to help save your soul
Speaker 2: so you can join me in the glories of hell.
Speaker 2: There's some great writing in the scene. He says, come
Speaker 2: with me into the velvet dark. Meanwhile, Hazel Cord is
Speaker 2: getting married to Satan again. She says, I inscribed the
Speaker 2: final mark and offer myself to thee and she like
Speaker 2: brands herself on the chest with an upside down cross
Speaker 2: a hot iron. She says, Lord Satan, send me a
Speaker 2: demon that I might you know, wet wedge, you in
Speaker 2: him or something and says she marks herself as one
Speaker 2: of Satan's hell maidens. And then we get some update
Speaker 2: on the b plot with hop Toad and Alfredo. Remember
Speaker 2: Alfredo's the nasty creep from earlier, and so they're talking
Speaker 2: about what kind of costumes they're going to wear to
Speaker 2: the masquerade, and hop Toad's point is, you know, it's
Speaker 2: the seventeenth century or whenever this is taking place, we
Speaker 2: have not figured out yet that it's not cool to
Speaker 2: pretend to be some kind of foreigner as a costume.
Speaker 2: So basically, everybody this masquerade is going to becoming as
Speaker 2: a cultural caricature. But what will all of them have
Speaker 2: in common? They'll all human, Alfredo. If you really want
Speaker 2: to be something cool, you should be a non human animal.
Speaker 2: Alfredo says, well, I could come as a demon. And
Speaker 2: hop Toad has an even better idea. Why not dress
Speaker 2: up in a gorilla suit? Amazing, this is great.
Speaker 1: I mean I love a gorilla suit in any motion picture.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna get a gorilla suit at this at
Speaker 1: this point. And I also just love that Alfredo is
Speaker 1: just such an evil brute. He has just avoid of creativity,
Speaker 1: but he kind of realizes that that is the case,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I'm gonna go with whatever. Hop
Speaker 1: Toad says, here because this guy's got ideas.
Speaker 2: This is an entertainer, yes, and this revenge b plot
Speaker 2: is gonna have a great payoff. So later Juliana comes
Speaker 2: to Francesca's room and Juliana is like, hey, few updates.
Speaker 2: I'm a hellmaiden. Now I want Prospero all to myself.
Speaker 2: So here's a key to the dungeon. You can break
Speaker 2: Gino and your father out of the dungeon. You all escape,
Speaker 2: then I'll be here with Prospero. Everybody wins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she says, don't mind if I do, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: Well, they try to escape and Gino kills some guards
Speaker 2: in the process, but it doesn't quite work. In fact,
Speaker 2: it seems it was all a setup. They come out
Speaker 2: to the castle walls and then there's a guard there,
Speaker 2: and the guard turns around and it's Vincent Price, and
Speaker 2: Vincent Price says, oh, interesting, how in trying to escape
Speaker 2: you all had to sin because they killed people? Of
Speaker 2: course it's check may there you go, who's bad now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Another lesson in darkness.
Speaker 2: So we got a head to the banquet before the masquerade,
Speaker 2: and the nobles are all at their banquet tables like
Speaker 2: the skexxies at the feast, and Vincent Price sets up
Speaker 2: an interesting game. There's a game he's going to play
Speaker 2: with Ludovico and Gino that has that has a number
Speaker 2: of daggers with one of them poisoned. Rob how would
Speaker 2: you describe this scene?
Speaker 1: So before he even sets up the game, Prospero is
Speaker 1: is taking these daggers and embedding them in the table,
Speaker 1: and then he explains, all right, I've got what five
Speaker 1: daggers here, and one of these daggers has a deadly
Speaker 1: poison on it that will take hold of your body
Speaker 1: and what five seconds?
Speaker 2: I think five seconds?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, quick acting poison. So since you two won't
Speaker 1: fight each other to the death, what you're gonna do
Speaker 1: is you're going to take turns picking a dagger cutting
Speaker 1: your skin and we'll see what happens. One of you
Speaker 1: is going to cut your skin with the poisoned dagger
Speaker 1: and and die. So let's let's see. Let's do it
Speaker 1: start now.
Speaker 2: And they do take turns. It's it's very tense scene,
Speaker 2: but they get all the way to the last dagger,
Speaker 2: and oh, it's like Russian roulette. It's like, if you
Speaker 2: get to the last chamber and it hasn't go yet,
Speaker 2: you're in trouble. And they get to the last dagger
Speaker 2: and none of them are poisoned yet, and it's Ludovico's turn,
Speaker 2: so it looks like he's just going to have to
Speaker 2: commit suicide. But then he pulls the dagger out and
Speaker 2: he lunges he tries to kill Prospero with it, but
Speaker 2: he is killed in the process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Prospero, I mean, Prospero knew. Prospero knew that this
Speaker 1: was the likely end of the game, though he's still
Speaker 1: a little offended that they didn't play it to its
Speaker 1: final phase.
Speaker 2: Oh and a quick little note also, when Prospero is
Speaker 2: setting up the game, he's talking to all the guests
Speaker 2: and he says something like, you know, it's come to
Speaker 2: my attention that some of you still have faith in
Speaker 2: the Christian God. Stop that at once.
Speaker 1: So at this point Ludo is dead. Gino is all
Speaker 1: that's left, and at this point Prospero has nothing else
Speaker 1: for him. He just kicks him outside the castle. He's like,
Speaker 1: go out there into the plague stricken world. You're You're
Speaker 1: done right.
Speaker 2: He's not going to kill him directly, He's going to
Speaker 2: banish him from the castle, and of course, the assumption
Speaker 2: is exiled outside the castle walls. He's going to meet
Speaker 2: the Red Death and Francesca begs to go with him,
Speaker 2: but Prospero tells her, no, you're gonna stay here.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Juliana Hazel Kord is once again like, well, I'm ready
Speaker 2: to get married to Satan. Now, getting married to Satan
Speaker 2: Nigga is a multi stage procedure, apparently, But before we
Speaker 2: get to see how that is finalized, we follow Gino
Speaker 2: outside the castle walls, where he staggers through that fog
Speaker 2: soaked forest of dead trees. Wolves are howling in the distance,
Speaker 2: and he stumbles along until he comes across the figure
Speaker 2: in red at the foot of the tree, turning over
Speaker 2: tarot cards on his lap, and Gino says, my god,
Speaker 2: and then the red figure says, who is your god?
Speaker 2: And it's it's very ominous. It's a wonderful, creepy scene.
Speaker 2: And Gino's saying, I have to go back and rescue Francesca,
Speaker 2: but I don't know what to do. What weapon can
Speaker 2: I use against Prospero? And the holy Man in Red
Speaker 2: suggests that he could use love now back at the cat,
Speaker 2: so we'll get the payoff of some b plots. The
Speaker 2: masquerade is coming up soon, so we see we see
Speaker 2: Alfredo getting into the gorilla suit, and.
Speaker 1: I think in the scene hopped Toat is already like
Speaker 1: whipping him a little bit to get into the act.
Speaker 2: And Julianna is getting married to Satan again, and she
Speaker 2: has this evil dream sequence where the dancers of Hell
Speaker 2: like mime stabbing at her, and then she wanders around
Speaker 2: through the differently colored rooms and she says, I have
Speaker 2: tasted the beauties of terror. We see like the pendulum
Speaker 2: from the giant clock ticking in the foreground, and you
Speaker 2: think she's married to Satan now, but she's not quite yet.
Speaker 2: There's one more thing. It's that she has to die.
Speaker 2: She gets attacked and killed by a falcon, and the
Speaker 2: partygoers discover her bloody body there after the bird has
Speaker 2: pecked her face off, and they're all like, oh no.
Speaker 2: But Vincent Price comes in and this is that great
Speaker 2: moment where he says, oh, do not mourn her. She
Speaker 2: is just married friend of mine.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's perfect delivery. Now, did you watch the
Speaker 1: theatrical cut or the extended cut of the film.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I made a point of watching the extended cut, and
Speaker 1: it's my understanding that we in the extended cut. Basically
Speaker 1: there are a few different bits we get a little
Speaker 1: bit more of, including this whole weird dream psychedelic sequence
Speaker 1: with Hazel Cord. And yeah, there's nothing in it that's
Speaker 1: particularly troubling, especially to modern viewers, but it does go
Speaker 1: on a bit and is like they're doing this, not
Speaker 1: in the sense that it gets boring, but it's just
Speaker 1: a lot of like distortions of her screaming face and
Speaker 1: slow motion content and it is it's very trippy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, she's married to Satan. Now she's out of
Speaker 1: the picture.
Speaker 2: All right, we're in the final stretch now, so I
Speaker 2: think we'll skip a little more lightly over what happens.
Speaker 2: So some more things go on inside the palace. There's
Speaker 2: a great scene of Gino trying to sneak back inside
Speaker 2: the castle with what is a sense an ewok grappling hook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, rope attached to a giant tree branch or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he throws it over the walls. He climbs up,
Speaker 2: he expects to meet guards, but no, instead he just
Speaker 2: meets the Man in Red again, and the holy Man
Speaker 2: in Red tells Gino there's no need to fight. He says,
Speaker 2: you know, just wait here on the rampart. Shortly after one,
Speaker 2: I will send Francesca to you. And Gino says, well, wait,
Speaker 2: what about the guards? But the Man in Red reveals
Speaker 2: that the guards have all died of the red death.
Speaker 2: They've got the blood splattered faces. And here there is
Speaker 2: the final confrontation, the big party. Well, first we get
Speaker 2: the pay off of the revenge plot on Alfredo, where
Speaker 2: hop toed Hog ties Alfredo in a gorilla suit, ties
Speaker 2: him to a chandelier, hoists him up in the air,
Speaker 2: and then just sets him on fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's horrifying to watch. I mean, it's gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where just about any burn suit moment in
Speaker 1: a film, old or new, kind of gives me the
Speaker 1: that makes me squirm a little bit, you know, But
Speaker 1: this one, Yeah, this is horrifying. You wrote you almost
Speaker 1: if you didn't know that Fred, that Alfredo was such
Speaker 1: a bad dude, you might think that hop Toad went
Speaker 1: a little bit too far. It's revenge execution here, but like.
Speaker 2: You said, Prosper's reaction to his friend here getting burned
Speaker 2: alive is like, oh, quite funny. Guards clean up this
Speaker 2: mess and give hop Toad a reward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, hop Toad knows his audience. He's served
Speaker 1: long in the in the court of Prince prosper In fact,
Speaker 1: he has a whole little monologue earlier in the film
Speaker 1: about that. He's like, yeah, I served Prince prosper for
Speaker 1: a long time.
Speaker 2: But in the middle of all this, Prospero and Francesca
Speaker 2: are wandering around, and it seems Francesca's zeal for Christianity
Speaker 2: has sort of been been destroyed. She's just like sort
Speaker 2: of resigned herself to do it. Well, I guess I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be for Satan now.
Speaker 1: Oh, and we should mention that Prospero in this sequence,
Speaker 1: in the final sequence of the film, is dressed like
Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia, of darkness, like Lawrence of Arabia, but
Speaker 1: all in black with gold in like the head dress.
Speaker 1: So it's a great look. He's just he's like all.
Speaker 2: Darkness, yes, but uh oh, he's looking out over all
Speaker 2: the party guests, and despite his orders, somebody here at
Speaker 2: the mask is wearing red. Remember they were not supposed
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: So not just red details or red trim, which I
Speaker 1: think was maybe allowed. But this guy's in all red
Speaker 1: and we know who this surely is, so.
Speaker 2: He's chasing him down. He goes through the rainbow rooms,
Speaker 2: through the Yellow room, the Purple room, the White room,
Speaker 2: and to the final black room where they have the confrontation.
Speaker 2: Rob described the scene. It is it's so perfect, oh,
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: It is just a perfect confrontation. You know this is
Speaker 1: going to happen. There's going to be this scene where
Speaker 1: Prospero finally speaks with the man in red, speaks with
Speaker 1: the red death personified. And I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: these things where you just have to just to see
Speaker 1: it to get all of the intricacies of the dialogue
Speaker 1: because it's just so perfectly executed. It's like this philosophical
Speaker 1: discussion of the nature of death and the universe and
Speaker 1: that the nature of Satan and who rules the universe.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's glorious stuff. And again in this trippy
Speaker 1: dark room with this red symbol like on the wall
Speaker 1: that is sometimes a window in the other rooms that
Speaker 1: I don't know if you what you made of this,
Speaker 1: but it made me think of like some sort of
Speaker 1: a bacterium or a or like a pustule or something
Speaker 1: transformed into a symbol.
Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, it's kind of a hexagon with but
Speaker 2: with bubbles at all of the vertices.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But this is the scene where like everything that
Speaker 1: Prospero believes in is being put to the test, Like
Speaker 1: he has he stands apart or he believe he stands
Speaker 1: apart from everyone else in the world and in his
Speaker 1: kingdom because he has privileged knowledge and a privileged understanding
Speaker 1: of the true nature of reality. And now he stands
Speaker 1: with this one who ultimately it's a little vague about
Speaker 1: you know who and what this is like is this Satan?
Speaker 1: Is this a god? Is this death? It's it? Is
Speaker 1: it the persona merely the personification of one type of death?
Speaker 1: But clearly it is a superhuman individual. It is some
Speaker 1: sort of like universal concept made manifest And here he
Speaker 1: is finally able to confront.
Speaker 2: It, and you go through the stages of who he
Speaker 2: thinks he is, right, like Price thinks that he's one
Speaker 2: of the guests. He's like, oh, are you doctor so
Speaker 2: and so? And then the figure in red says, the
Speaker 2: doctor Danse is in the white room, you know, next door,
Speaker 2: so it's not him. And then he gets all excited
Speaker 2: because he's like, oh, I get it, you're Satan. You're
Speaker 2: here to congratulate me on being your your best, your
Speaker 2: most loyal recruiter. But no, he's not Satan either.
Speaker 1: And he keeps it a little little vague. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Satan rules the universe and I made a
Speaker 1: prom and we made a pact with each other over this,
Speaker 1: and he's like, he does not rule the universe alone.
Speaker 1: So I love how the film plays it loose with
Speaker 1: exactly what the what theological system is actually in place
Speaker 1: in the universe. It's not one of these films like
Speaker 1: The Devil Rides Out where it's like Satanic threat, Christianity
Speaker 1: comes and saves the day at the end, like it's
Speaker 1: everything is ultimately unclear exactly what sort of superhuman forces
Speaker 1: are at play in reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but of course we get the big reveal.
Speaker 2: It is the Red Death, and the Red Death spreads
Speaker 2: to everyone in the palace except Francesca, so we see
Speaker 2: all the dancers. You know that they are splattered with
Speaker 2: the Red Death and then finally Prospero himself kind of
Speaker 2: melts into a red red puddle.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And there's also the brilliant part where he
Speaker 1: unmasks the Red Death and Red Death has Prospero's own face,
Speaker 1: which is the earlier in the encounter. He tells him
Speaker 1: it's like death has no face until you know your
Speaker 1: very own face at the moment of your death and
Speaker 1: so forth. It's all the dialogue is just beautiful. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely perfectly executed here.
Speaker 2: But there is a happy ending for the good characters.
Speaker 2: Francesca and Gino and hop Toad and Esmeralda. All the
Speaker 2: good characters get to escape and they meet outside the
Speaker 2: castle walls with a peasant child who was spared earlier
Speaker 2: when peasants came to the gate looking for help and
Speaker 2: Prospero had them all slaughtered except for the kid. But
Speaker 2: we also get some more perspective on the world at large,
Speaker 2: because it seems like the Red Death is not the
Speaker 2: only death. We get a white death, a yellow death,
Speaker 2: a black death. They're all gathering, there's a purple death.
Speaker 2: They're all gathering by the tree where the Red Death
Speaker 2: was hanging out at the beginning, all wearing a robe
Speaker 2: of their own color, and it's such a spectacular ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we get through the rainbow theme once more.
Speaker 1: And I guess I felt like some of these were
Speaker 1: maybe related to the four humors. You know, we have
Speaker 1: red Death, Black Death, Yellow Death. I guess the grayish
Speaker 1: looking one is maybe blue, blue Death, White Death. I'm
Speaker 1: less sure about though, though. I Mean, I can think
Speaker 1: of some some fantasy stories that involve something called the
Speaker 1: White Death, So one can imagine that these are all
Speaker 1: just different plagues that are running rampant in the world,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of their personifications are checking in and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going, what your what's your kill rate today?
Speaker 1: Did you make quota? And they're like, yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: doing great. I hear, I hear Blue Death is a
Speaker 1: little behind today. But man, did you hear about Black
Speaker 1: He's really he's really cranking in the numbers. But it's
Speaker 1: not like that. It's it's more of a solemn affair,
Speaker 1: a vague affair. They don't really know exactly what these
Speaker 1: entities are except they're clearly involved in death. But it's
Speaker 1: a it's a solemn kind of Death, and in fact
Speaker 1: we get the final words of the film are in
Speaker 1: Latin what sic transit Gloria Monday, which translates to thus
Speaker 1: passes the glory of the World.
Speaker 2: I think they also quote the ending of the Pose story,
Speaker 2: don't they say that the darkness and decay and the
Speaker 2: red death held illimitable dominion overall?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes they do. And then we also get a
Speaker 1: kind of go back to the same style as the
Speaker 1: opening credits, we get the closing credits, which are also splendid.
Speaker 1: These this is definitely a credit sequence to stick with
Speaker 1: for the duration, not because there's any kind of cool
Speaker 1: stinger at the end, just because they're beautiful to watch
Speaker 1: and they kind of play out in a way that builds,
Speaker 1: and then the film closes, we go red increasingly read
Speaker 1: and then darkness.
Speaker 2: Who knew Roger Corman had it in him? This is
Speaker 2: just a fantastic, stylish horror movie.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: This is just peak artful Roger Corman Vincent Price film
Speaker 1: and just just a great Halloween movie. So definitely worth
Speaker 1: checking out. Even if you don't think you're into Vincent
Speaker 1: Price films. I think you're not into films from the
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties early mid nineteen sixties. This is one
Speaker 1: that I think holds up exceedingly well for modern viewers.
Speaker 1: But hey, we'd love to hear from everyone out there
Speaker 1: about this film as well. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: Mask of the Red Death? What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: adaptations of Edgar Allan poet stories in general? I guess
Speaker 1: this is the first time we've discussed one on the show,
Speaker 1: but there are many more out there, and there are
Speaker 1: some we might come back to there. I can't think
Speaker 1: of one off hand that's better than this one. I
Speaker 1: can think it's someone they're much hammier, but there are
Speaker 1: definitely some other choices, and of course there are some
Speaker 1: other ones by Corman in company as well. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: we close out here will remind you that we're primarily
Speaker 1: a science podcast, but on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That is our time to set aside most serious concerns
Speaker 1: and just talk about a strange film. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to keep up with the films that we are covering,
Speaker 1: have covered and we'll cover on the show, I chronicle
Speaker 1: them at Simmuta music dot com. That's just a blog
Speaker 1: that I maintain. But then also weird House has its
Speaker 1: own account on letterboxed dot com. That's l E T
Speaker 1: T e r box d dot com. Our username is
Speaker 1: weird House. We have a list there that has all
Speaker 1: of the films that we've watched. You can see it
Speaker 1: all in like a nice visual spread of thumbnails, and
Speaker 1: you can organize them by decades or however you want,
Speaker 1: and there are links there that'll take you to the episodes.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to visualize where we are, what
Speaker 1: decades we've covered, and I believe as according to my accounting,
Speaker 1: this was the ninetieth film that we've covered on Weirdouse Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 3: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.