The Masque of the Red Death

My favorite fast food restaurant is Arby's. I know that, comparing them to other sandwich places, Arby's is suspect at best. Their meat is shipped in a moldable block that looks like random meat parts compressed together. The sauce on a beef & cheddar is called red ranch despite having no tangential connection to ranch dressing whatsoever. Arby's is trash food. But it hits a certain spot in me that no other food does, and when the craving hits, nothing else will do. I acknowledge it's trash food, but it's delicious trash food. The Masque Of The Red Death is movie Arby's, and I mean that as a compliment. Masque has modest ambitions. It should, it's a Roger Corman movie. This was designed to be on a double bill at a drive-in, or played on some local weekly horror movie TV show hosted by someone in a Spirit Halloween vampire cape. The set design and costuming are wildly OTT in that high-level B-movie only 60's horror can do; colors are so bright, they look up like the Skittles rainbow puked on set, everything is flamboyant and splashy, sets look huge but fake but also fun. It's not aiming to be campy and corny, it's just that Masque knows it is a B-level horror movie, so it's gonna be the hell out of it. And of course, in the center of this, is Vincent MF'ing Price, hamming it up as the sinister Prince Prospero. If you've seen Price be a baddie, you know what to expect here: hammy, smug, and all done without a shred of shame or self-awareness. Again, that's a compliment. Price knew his groove and worked it to the Nth degree. He's always having the time of his life in whatever role he's in, and that's no different here. I'm not gonna say this is for everybody. 60's horror, especially 60's B-movie horror, is a thing you get or you don't. Vincent Price is someone you get or you don't. If you don't, this won't convince you otherwise. But if you can get into it and turn off your brain for some dumb fun, this is a solid watch.