The Masque of the Red Death / The Premature Burial
by Roger Corman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Weston, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, Nigel Green, Vincent PriceDirector: Roger Corman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 169 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-08-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Masque of the Red Death / The Premature Burial
Movie Review: Double Your Terror
Summary: 5 Stars
[This review is part of my 31 days of Halloween series.]
This is a fantastic double-your-horror bill.
MASQUE OF THE RED features B horror flixs luminaries Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher & Nigel Green under the equisite direction of Roger Gorman. I use the designation "B" lovingly & in homage to Roger Gorman's frugal ways in making these movies not only possible, but also making them forever remembered.
The plot is simple. Plague is ravaging the countryside & the only place of safety is in a Satanic prince's castle. Well, his quests think it's safe, but they are really going from the pot into the fire. In addition to the acting & direction & script, other outstanding elements in this movie are the costumes & the splendid use of color, the choreography, and the strange dream sequence.
PREMATURE BURIAL stars veteran Ray Milland & Hazel Court. The plot revolves around the very real fear people had of being buried alive at the end of the Victorian era--well, just about everybody was buried alive at the end of the Victorian era, but that's a whole other tale of terror. I remarked about this in my review THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER because this fear figured in that plot too, but it takes center stage in PREMATURE BURIAL.
Before the 20th century the process of death & decomposition was little understood. For example, the belief in vampirism was in part fueled by the fact that some exhumed bodies still looked lifelike, the nails appeared to have grown because the tissue around them had retreated; in like manner the teeth appeared longer & blood seemed to be on the lips as another stage of the natural process. When people suspected someone of being a vampire, they opened the grave & saw all this & when they drove a stake in the chest sometimes the body seemed to groan as air was forced into the chest gavity.
These signs also caused people to think that premature burial was more prevalent than it ever could have been--or at least one would hope. Again, some corpses from graves that were open for one reason or another appeared to have, in fact, been buried alive--all beause of the ordinary process of decomposition.
In the film Ray Milland's character has the fear big time & his efforts to prevent being accidentally buried alive are trully obsessive & appropriately creepy.
Both these films are outstanding dark flowers of their genre.
Transylvania
Darklore Manor
Shadow of the Raven
Summary of The Masque of the Red Death / The Premature Burial
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!
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
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