The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
One of my blind spots is overtly-religion-based horror (even The Exorcist left me cold), so you can imagine my excitement when the characters in this started pontificating about Satanism vs. Christianity. It's still rich, baroque fun whenever Vincent Price is onscreen doing his thing. The rest of the time, it's as stiff and lumbering as your average Merchant-Ivory epic, which kinda puts a damper on the whole scaring-the-audience-out-of-its-wits thing. Striking ending, but it's all for naught. At least the cinematography (by future director Nicolas Roeg!) is pretty.
Grade: C+
One of my blind spots is overtly-religion-based horror (even The Exorcist left me cold), so you can imagine my excitement when the characters in this started pontificating about Satanism vs. Christianity. It's still rich, baroque fun whenever Vincent Price is onscreen doing his thing. The rest of the time, it's as stiff and lumbering as your average Merchant-Ivory epic, which kinda puts a damper on the whole scaring-the-audience-out-of-its-wits thing. Striking ending, but it's all for naught. At least the cinematography (by future director Nicolas Roeg!) is pretty.
Grade: C+
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