HORROR BUSINESS EPISODE 150: The Masque Of The Red Death & The Evil
Description
Greetings, and welcome back to Horror Business. We have one awesome episode in store for you guys because we’re talking about two films directed or produced by the late great Roger Corman: 1964’s The Masque Of The Red Death and 1978 The Evil.
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We start by talking about some of the things we’ve done involving horror recently. We talk about seeing the film The First Omen, and Liam talks about I Saw The TV Glow. Justin talks about the films Arcadian, Imaginary, as well as some of the films he watched at Chattanooga Film Fest, which you can read about at Cinepunx.com!
Up first is The Masque Of The Red Death. We discuss the film’s depiction of theistic satanism, which differs from traditional satanism in that it worships Satan, in addition to the film’s ambivalence as to whether God and the Devil are real, as opposed to its depictions of plagues as anthropomorphized characters.
We discuss the film’s theme of class consciousness; in that it not only depicts Prospero as evil because he worships the devil but also because he is rich and negligent towards his poorer charges. Justin talks about the source materials criticism of the decadence of the rich and their disdain of the lower classes and how ahead of the curve it was, and we discuss the film’s criticism of royalty and inherited power and its connection to the immoral nature of kleptocracy as well.
We talk about how Prospero’s objectification of the lower class is even more evil than mere apathy for them, and some of the film’s “stellar” production choices, including the colored rooms, costumes, and set design.
We talk about Vincent Price’s ability to add dignity to an otherwise less than dignified film, and how even though it’s not traditionally scary it’s still a successful horror film. We close with discussing Roger Corman’s far reaching impact on the history of film.
Up next is The Evil. We give a summary of the film and talk about the somewhat absurd setting of it to begin with. We discuss how we weren’t particularly fond of this movie but at least it’s a bad movie made earnestly and talk about some of the more ridiculous elements of it.
Liam discusses the film’s inability to transition from “upsetting part to not upsetting part”, which leads into a discussion of the appreciation we have for movies that acknowledge even if the characters survi