Plot

In this macabre tale, the Prince Prospero isolates himself, along with many guests, in his castle in order to protect them from a deadly disease (The Red Death) that is ravaging the country.

In this macabre tale, the Prince Prospero seals himself and many of his friends into the abbey of a castle in order to protect them from a deadly pestilence (The Red Death) that is ravaging the country. But when the group indulge in a lavish costume ball in order to distract themselves from the suffering and death outside their walls, the Red Death, disguised as a costumed guest, enters and claims the lives of everyone present. The story is narrated in a manner which gives it the quality of a myth, allegory or fairy tale, exploring themes of man's fear of death, sin, madness, and the end of the world.

The Masque of the Red Death is a period piece, originally written as a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that takes place in the 1820s during the time of the bubonic plague. The story covers a period of approximately six months during the reign of the Red Death. The action takes place in " [the] deep seclusion of one of [Prince Prospero's] castellated abbeys." The "masque" takes place in the imperial suite of the abbey.

This story has no characters in the usual sense which lends credibility to an allegorical interpretation. Only Prince Prospero speaks. His name suggests happiness and good fortune; however, ironically this is not the case. Within the Prince's abbey, he has created a world of his imagination with masked figures that reflect "his own guiding taste." These dancers are so much a product of the Prince's imagination that story refers to them as "a multitude of dreams." Even when the "Red Death" enters, the author refers to this character as a "figure" or a "mummer" who "was tall and guant, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask...was made...to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse....But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood-and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror." When the mummer is seized toward the end of the story, all "gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpselike mask...untenanted by any tangible form."

The main theme of the film is that no one escapes death. Human happiness (as represented by Prince Prospero) seeks to wall out the threat of death; however, the Biblical reference (I Thessalonians 5:2-3) at the end of the story reminds us that death comes "like a thief in the night," and even those who seek "peace and safety...shall not escape."

This tale is a prime example of Poe's Gothic horror fiction. It evokes a dark and eerie mood in a story that focuses on images of blood and death, while the personification of the Red Death lends an element of the supernatural. In The Masque of the Red Death, powerful imagery and an illusive narrative voice are tightly woven into a macabre tale of horror with insight into the human condition.