Roger Corman's Poe-Boy Sandwich
Masque of the Red Death and The Premature Burial
From the MGM Midnight Movies collection

(In the picture, from left to right - Ray Milland, June Asher and Vincent Price. ® MGM Home Video.)

Any idiot can spill quarts of blood and plastic imitation body parts in a film and call it "horror." An awful lot of idiots do. And still more idiots watch the resulting films and rave about them. But there were people who did a lot more with a lot less, and the king of "more for less" was Roger Corman.

This double-sided DVD features what is widely considered Corman's best Poe production. Red Death has better props, money, sets and photography than any of his other Poe movies. More than that, it has better writing; it shows the human side of the monster played by Vincent Price, the cruel Prince Prospero.

Edgar Allen Poe's original story said little about Prospero. In the script by Charles Beaumont and R.Wright Campbell, Prospero is a Satanist. The people he invites to his sealed castle are the rich and powerful of the land - those whom he hasn't betrayed, at least. Unlike the so-called Satanists in most horror movies, Prospero shows how his worship of the Lord of Flies makes more sense - in his view - than worshipping a God that allows men to suffer.

This is all done as sweet-talk, as he tries to seduce the poor villager Francesca (the beautiful June Asher) into becoming his latest bride. His current squeeze Julianna (Hazel Court) is trying to two-time Prospero by becoming the bride of Satan. Bad move; it's like trying to become the bride of Snoop Dogg, there's always a replacement waiting around the corner. And after a nightmare sequence where Julianna imagines the worst metaphor for sex you can imagine - getting stabbed repeatedly with big swords - Prospero gives her a quick, summary divorce.

As you can expect, it all winds up with the Red Death - the personification of the plague that's decimating the peasants - showing up for the big Dance of Death. There is one very pleasing factor in this DVD version. Fearing the wrath of right-wing Christians, most prints of the movie on TV and on tape censor the words of ol' Red at the climax. The DVD includes the complete dialog - the censored words are in bold. "Each man creates his own God to believe in... his own Heaven, his own Hell." That little bit of censorship, in a time before Ashcroft, always irritated me, and it's good to see it removed from this edition.

The other movie on the DVD is the result of contractural problems. The Premature Burial was made when Corman was working for Pathe Studios, and he had to use the less popular Ray Milland instead of Price. (Ironically, American-International bought out Pathe anyway.) Milland's character, Guy Farrell, is deeply afraid of being buried alive, the fate of his father. He's arranged a crypt with multiple escape devices to permit him to escape, including the ultimate out, deadly poison. In a dream sequence he escapes from his tomb, and every device fails.

Once again, Hazel Court appears as the treacherous wife. Her true intentions become pretty obvious, but there's lots of creepy atmosphere, including a gravedigger who constantly whistles "Molly Malone," constant fog, and Milland himself growing slowly more paranoid and frantic. As you can guess, Milland does get the unscheduled dirt nap, but manages to get out without any special gimmicks to wreak a well-deserved revenge.

Most people love Vincent Price's horror characters because he overacted. That helped distance people from the terrible events of the films, so they couldn't take them seriously. Watching Price flail around in Red Death, you almost start laughing. Price rode it right to the edge where his histrionics almost became ridiculous, but he never went over the edge; that was his real genius.

Milland in Burial takes a different approach. He is far more subtle. He's more of a straight actor. Because he wasn't trying to be campy, he couldn't be laughed off so easily. Thus, the horror fanboys claim Price is far better than Milland. I'll only say that Milland is an acquired taste. He did one other great horror film for Corman, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, which I'll get around to reviewing one day.

Anyway, this double disk is a great choice for popcorn-and-pizza night. Run it like a double feature at the drive-in; put the lesser Premature Burial on first, then flip over to Red Death. (The disk has commentary by Roger Corman about both movies. Pity they don't have a DVD out there with intermission films and a cartoon. Or do they?) At last look, this DVD was selling on amazon.com for as little as $7 for a used disk. I'd rather have it than Underworld or any of the rubber-coated babes in that turkey.

Did you hear right? Did Thomas E. Reed, television engineer from Orlando, Florida, just turn down a date with a rubber-coated babe? Yes. After a few hours of wearing that stuff, babes don't smell too good. That's where the rubber meets the road. Tread well when you "fire stones" at him at hatemail@off-model.com.