| View Larger Image | The Masque of the Red Death / The Premature Burial | DVDStarring: Ray Milland, Hazel Court, Vincent Price, Richard Ney, Heather Angel
Directed By: Roger Corman
Also With: Roger Corman (Producer), Gene Corman (Producer), George Willoughby (Producer), Charles Beaumont (Writer), Edgar Allan Poe (Writer), R. Wright Campbell (Writer), Ray Russell (Writer)
| List Price: | $14.98 | | Price: | $13.49 | | You Save: | $1.49 (10%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | DVD | | Rating: |  | | Run Time: | 169 minutes | | Format: | Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC | | Studio: | MGM (Video & DVD) | | Number of Discs: | 1 | | Aspect Ratio: | 2.35:1 | | Release Date: | August 27, 2002 | | Sales Rank: | 8,775th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Description
The Masque of the Red Death: Death and Debauchery reign in the castle of Prince Prospero (Vincent Price), and when it reigns... it pours! Prospero has only once excuse for his diabolical deeds--the devil made him do it! But when a mysterious, uninvited guest crashes his pad during a masquerade ball, there'll be hell to pay as the party atmosphere turns into a danse macabre! The Premature Burial: Talk about a tortured artist! Oscar winner Ray Milland is Guy, a medical student and painter whose obsessive fear of being buried alive compels him to build himself a tomb with a view, equipped with everything he can think of to escape death. But it's when his long-suffering wife convinces him to destroy the tomb that he finds himself in the gravest danger! |
Amazon.com
The Masque of the Red Death (1964) is Roger Corman's, and most people's, choice as the best of the Edgar Allan Poe pictures. Masque offers the expected creepy atmosphere and violence against peasants, plus metaphysical ponderings and pointed satanic cruelty. (Corman was operating as much under the influence of Ingmar Bergman as of Edgar Allan Poe.) Nicolas Roeg's color cinematography and Daniel Haller's elaborate production design would be stellar in any Hollywood A-movie; the mono-colored rooms of the prince's castle are a startling effect. Vincent Price is in fine fettle as Prince Prospero, the devil-worshipping sadist who throws lavish parties while the countryside is ravaged by the plague. The Premature Burial (1962) substitutes Ray Milland in the usual Price role. He's a snarky landowner (with a sideline in art--dig those mod paintings) haunted by the fear of being buried alive. This single-minded focus limits the film, but it also adds to the smothering sense of anxiety that prevails throughout its unhealthy scenario. Luscious Hazel Court is Milland's new missus, and old-school cameraman Floyd Crosby proves his facility for photographing women in a classical style. Lots of cobwebs-on-candelabra in the customary Corman-Poe manner, with special emphasis on Milland's crypt, with its supposedly foolproof exit schemes. --Robert Horton |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 55 reviews)
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BEAUTIFUL PRINTS!! by Carl Daigrepont (Houston, Texas)  4 Stars
November 29, 2009
"MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH" was always the most beautiful and one of the most profound, of Roger Corman's Poe series.
The print they've found for this film is gorgeous...as is "THE PREMATURE BURIAL", one of the gloomier Poe flicks.
The price is so fair...it's incredible!
Get it...before it goes "Out of Print"!
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Roger Corman's Dynamic Duo! by James "Scotman" April (Bakersfield, CA)  5 Stars
November 11, 2009
MGM Midnite Movies!
The Devil, you say? The Masque of the Red Death is the first feature of this flip-around DVD. Roger Corman directs and produces another Poe-related story, this time telling the story of the tyrant Prospero, played to its evil height by Vincent Price. He arrives at a village, ostensibly thanking them for harvest. In response they grumble and one guy tells him where he can take his thanks. Oops. Mayhem ensues.
Corman weaves quite the tapestry of eerie imagery, only touched on with "The Pit and The Pendulum." The dream sequence with Juliana becoming betrothed to Satan is horrific and somehow sexually interesting, in a perverse sort of way.
Who is the Red Death was a shocker, had no clue. If you ever saw the ending to The Prisoner The Prisoner: The Complete Series [Blu-ray] with Patrick Magoohan, it's like that -- complete shock! The evil Juliana is played in a subdued manner by the actress Hazel Court Dr. Blood's Coffin, and the hot peasant girl Francesca (yeah, yeah) was played in a realistic but timid manner by Joan Asher
The macabre scenes (burning man) and the colored rooms and colored disguises were masterfully done. The red and green candles, and so on, paint an imagery within an imagery. Nicely done.
Features on this side of DVD Hell: Roger Corman Behind the Masque == interesting thought processes, making of feature; he goes over ALL his Poe films, discusses the studio problems, production situations and that "Masque" is his best one. Amazing use of colored lighting, scenery, distorted lens and intense music by David Lee.
Interestingly, he states he studied the German Expressionist films of the 1920s, as well as Hitchcock and Bergman, when making the Poe films. Didn't know that!
And of course the inevitable trailer which gives the whole shock ending away! Thanks a lot!!
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Lay me down! Roger Corman could not get Vincent for The Premature Burial, so picked up actor Ray Milland, who has done a few scifi films (X - The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, etc.), does not do a bad job as Guy, a medical student who is scared to death (pun) of being buried alive!
Ray plays a man who is on the edge, who paints weird paintings and drinks to death. He even builds a crypt that is escape-proof. His wife, played by the same actress as in Masque, Hazel Court, plays a role in this film with the theme I've seen before -- pretty much guessed early on what was happening, but the ending left me a bit flat.
Milland is a very proper mad Britain in this film. He walks through his part in some odd inconsistent way that does not play right the way Vincent Price would have played it. Decent Corman film, not as good as Masque, not only because of the miscast Ray Milland but also the effects though interesting did not create that atmosphere of the macabre that I've come to love about Price films.
Its saving grace was in the use of music -- the wide mouth followed by the horn in the background was quite chilling in the (inevitable) dream sequence.
Roger Corman interview gets into the mind of the man who made both films, I found very interesting and may attract the amateur movie-maker.
Overall, the MGM Midnite series is awesome and should be purchased in all its incarnations.
Other Corman tidbits:
Roger Corman Collection (Bloody Mama / A Bucket of Blood / The Trip / Premature Burial / The Young Racers / The Wild Angels / Gas-s-s / X)
The Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy
Advantage: The Cult Films of Roger Corman
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God bless every good Christian by Noel Pratt (Washington, D.C., and better places) 5 Stars
September 30, 2009
--and every good Christian needs to see MASQUE. Given enough cognac, even Poe would be happy with this film. It's such a sublimely tolerable delight -- the moral and the decadent done up in garish splendor and good humor (although if you give in to the humor while watching, how DARE you!). Surely Vincent Price is one of the ten best actors ever. Director, Corman; screenwriters -- names I've forgotten. One of the best lines of the movie? "I have survived my own sacrifice" (to Belial, of course). One of the few horror movies from this or any period that doesn't find you asking the age-old question, "When's the monster gonna come?!" And such blessedly sweet innocence in the redheaded Francesca. Truly a cathartic carnal carnival.
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The Premature Burial (1962) - Well Done! by Keith Mirenberg (www.spaceanimations.org) 4 Stars
July 11, 2009
The Premature Burial (1962) was a well done four star Roger Corman production that I first saw in 1962 in New York. This film was another predictably good Roger Corman production with grand sets, costumes, story and acting. After rewatching all three of Roger Corman's Poe films for 1960 through 1962 I started asking myself how many times can you make a film about premature burial? If you think about it, the theme of Corman's first three Poe films all involved a creepy setting with crypts, an unwanted guest, and premature burial of one kind or another.
I don't agree that the Masque of the Red Death was one of Corman's best films but it was a nice change from the overused theme of premature burial. I missed the Masque when it first came out in 1964 but was lucky enough to have a friend who was a film editor bring it to my home on 16 mm in 1971 for a private showing. It was definitely good, as far as this reviewer was concerned, very different and nicely done.
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Roger Corman's best by Cinsearae R. Santiago (Philadelphia, PA) 5 Stars
June 23, 2009
Price and Corman were a wonderful working duo. And Corman's love for Poe's work shows. The Masque of The Red Death I think is one of Corman's best works, and is very artistic. Although I missed seeing Price in The Premature Burial, I was still enraptured with Milland's doomed character Guy, and worked very well in the role. An excellent gothic horror movie double feature worth seeing!
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| The Tomb of Ligeia / An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe
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THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER: Audio Commentary by Director Roger Corman Original Theatrical Trailer THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM: Rare Prologue
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THE OBLONG BOX SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN
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| Tales of Terror/Twice Told Tales (Midnite Movies Double Feature)
Starring: Vincent Price, Maggie Pierce, Leona Gage, Peter Lorre, Joyce Jameson
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TALES OF TERROR: Original Theatrical Trailer Widescreen (2.35) English (Mono) Subtitles: French, Spanish TWICE TOLD TALES: Widescreen (1.66)
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