The Masque of the Red Death (1989) poster

The Masque of the Red Death (1989)

Rating:


USA. 1989.

Crew

Director – Alan Birkinshaw, Screenplay – Michael J. Murray, Producers – Avi Lerner & Harry Alan Towers, Photography – Jossi Wein, Music – Coby Recht, Special Effects Supervisor – Greg Pitts, Makeup Effects – Scott Wheeler, Production Design – Leith Ridley. Production Company – 21st Century Film Corporation/Breton Film.

Cast

Michelle McBride (Rebecca Stephens), Herbert Lom (Ludwig), Frank Stallone (Duke), Brenda Vaccaro (Elaina Hart), Christine Lund (Colette), Christobel d’Ortez (Dr Karen), Simon Poland (Max), Godfrey Charles (Hans), Foziah Davidson (Kitrah)


Plot

Paparazzi photographer Rebecca Stephens wangles a guest invite to a masque being held at the castle of the aristocrat Ludwig. She goes in costume as Cupid with a camera built into her bow in order to get photographs of the soap opera star Elaina Hart. The aging Ludwig has gathered those he cares about and those he has sponsored over the years. Rebecca discovers that someone dressed as the Red Death is among the attendees and killing guests. As panic spreads, Ludwig activates a button that locks them in the castle until dawn, making them all easy prey for the red death.


The Masque of Red Death (1842) is one of the classic short stories from Edgar Allan Poe. The story is only three pages long and takes place in the Middle Ages at a masque being held by Prince Prospero who secludes a group of aristocrats in his castle away from the Red Death as it ravages the land. The big twist is that one of the guests is the Red Death attending in person, whereupon it reveals its face killing everybody. The first film version was the silent Plague of Florence (1919) with a script from Fritz Lang, while the most famous is The Masque of the Red Death (1964), one of Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations during the 1960s starring Vincent Price as Prince Prospero. Other films adaptations of include:- a cheap and disappointing remake from Corman Masque of Red Death (1989) with Adrian Paul as Prospero; and an episode of the animated anthology Extraordinary Tales (2015).

The great disappointment of this version is that it is not really an adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death in any but the most nominal sense. There is a castle with a group of gathered partygoers. There is no Prince Prospero (the only human character in the Poe story), although Herbert Lom’s Ludwig seems a loose equivalent but is a far more benevolent character rather than the embodiment of aristocratic privilege that Poe intended Prospero to be. There is no plague ravaging the land – indeed, the story has been updated to the present-day where it is hard to imagine that the story’s mediaeval plague setting would be able to work set contemporary.

This version is no more than an Edgar Allan Poe Slasher Film. We do get a Red Death but this is merely a costume worn by a partygoer – making the Red Death no more than a standard masked maniac. Resemblances to the story end there. We do get a number of other Poe references – a black cat lurking around the castle; a pendulum clock (which somebody is tied up beneath at one point); and a tell-tale heart. The most imaginative of the deaths is the non-Poe one where Foziah Davidson gets threaded inside a large sewing frame. There is nothing supernatural to the film. Everything arrives at a disappointingly routine denouement where the person who is eventually revealed to be behind the mask of the Red Death is doing so for purely mundane reasons of jealousy for Herbert Lom’s attention.

Michelle McBride and Frank Stallone in The Masque of the Red Death (1989)
Undercover paparazzi photographer Michelle McBride with Frank Stallone, brother of Sylvester

This has a reputation as a bad film, although in my opinion the Adrian Paul film of the same year is much more dull. A large part of this seems to centre on the performances. Herbert Lom is serviceable, while Michelle McBride, who only went on to appear in two other film roles, is a likeable lead. What does attract everybody’s attention is Frank Stallone, Sylvester Stallone’s younger brother who has maintained a career based solely on familial association. As well as performing as a musician, Frank has done assorted acting roles, mostly bit parts in Sylvester’s films. He plays the part as a smooth playboy type who seems to think he is God’s gift but beyond some good looks has no real acting muscle for the part. The worst offender is the acting department is Brenda Vaccaro, who came to fame in the 1970s and spent the rest of her career giving a series of over-the-top, scenery-chewing performances – the low point of which was Supergirl (1984) – that only shout out how much she is showboating to the gallery.

The Masque of the Red Death was one of the films from the 21st Century Film Corporation, formed by Menahem Golan following the financial collapse of Cannon Films. The film is produced by Harry Alan Towers, an exploitation producer since the 1960s with the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu films, assorted Agatha Christie films and adventure adaptations.

Director Alan Birkinshaw, who is brother of celebrated British writer Fay Weldon, has made a number of other genre films including Killer’s Moon (1978), Invaders of the Lost Gold/Horror Safari (1982) and a horror Agatha Christie adaptation Ten Little Indians (1989), also for producer Harry Alan Towers. Around the same time as this, he made another modernised Edgar Allan Poe adaptation for Towers and 21st Century Film Corporation with The House of Usher (1989).


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