Film Summary DCCXVIII (The Masque of the Red Death)

The Red Death sweeps over the village, and all shall perish. But for the solitary Prince, locked in his Castle.

With rich followers he waits ever patiently for his master's return.

He shall give sacrifice to Satan (the great lord of flies) and thus protect the prince from this most Dreadful disease.

Or at the very least that's the idea. In reality making deals with Satan doesn't really turn out well. Heck making deals with God never turns out well either. When in doubt don't make deals with Immortal beings or any sort of entity 4 which mortality has no effect. Just leave them be. Whatever you think you're getting out of the deal will pale in comparison to the price. Like being swarmed by a thousand infected people before inevitably being conquered by the very being you sought to escape.

This is another one of those Edgar Allan Poe stories that is far too short for a movie. And yet they turned it into one anyways.
Now I haven't actually read the original story, so I have no idea what's been added and what hasn't. But I can surmise that great Liberty has been taken.
Regardless though, the movies okay.
It's got this fun medieval set, it looks relatively decent. Vincent Price is a lot of fun. Though sadly there's not enough Christopher Lee. A problem that persists in many movies.

I wish we got more back story with Vincent Price's Prince character. I wanted to understand why he started worshipping the devil to begin with, and how he became Associated of all these other weird people. Who all may have knowledge of the devil but choose to keep their mouth shut. Or just live in perfect ignorance because they're constantly flushed with riches.
Not that it doesn't any good in the long run.

I felt like our main protagonist was underdeveloped. It's this random girl who unfortunately has to choose between the life of her father or of her husband. She refuses to take part in this and keeps begging for mercy and I guess old Vincent Price to must take a fancy towards two stomachs dead as he decides just a toy with them for a while and come up with new schemes to let one of them die. And I kept thinking there'd be more character interaction between her and Vincent Price but it never really fans out. She's just kind of there as a kidnap victim with a little proper interaction to price.

At some point her Father dies, so the dilemmas over, and her husband is actually able to escape the castle. Only to try and come back to save her.
Ultimately though he's useless. As the mysterious red cloaked man is the one that actually pushes the plot along.
Our supposed protagonist and her husband are kind of just there. At the whim of the world around them.
In most movies I wouldn't care for that. But this is a medieval setting and no peasant is going to tell a prince what to do. Especially a so well-armed one.
There's a weird part of this movie involving a short man and a supposed short Woman. Except she's actually just a child that they dubbed over a female voice and it's kind of awkward.

Overall the movie is better than The Raven but it's not quite as interesting.
The Raven has barely any connection to its original source of tail and just feels like a big wizard Adventure.
This feels like a medieval plague story that just happens to have spiritual super natural elements. You don't even need it in the movie to have anything work.
All the stuff with the devil was more implied than ever shown.