Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset 13 - You’re All FREAKS!!!: Disease, Death and Vincent Price feat. Theda Hammel

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

[Note: these Movie Mindset Horrortober Season 1 episodes were already unlocked for free this year over on the Patreon feed, just adding them to the public feed to make them more widely available. To get every Movie Mindset episode, subscribe at patreon.com/chapotraphouse.] Will & Hesse are joined by Nymphowars’ Theda Hammel to discuss two horror films from 1964 starring the legend Vincent Price: Sidney Salkow’s “The Last Man on Earth” & Roger Corman’s “The Masque of the Red Death”. Both deal with the end of the world in their own way and highlight Price’s unique combination of campiness and dramatic heft for both comedic and horrifying effects.

Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. Candy beans. Sparkling drinks are just dandy. Chocolate pies and a candy. So let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. Ah! Welcome back, boys and ghouls, to Horrortober, ghoul v. Screamset, ghoul spectacular. We're filling all your ghoul needs this October.

We're back to talk two horror movies today, both made in the year 1964, both produced by American International Pictures, both dealing with themes of the collapse of civilization, disease and decadence, and both starring the great Vincent Price. And by way of introducing these movies, we are joined by our first guest on this mini horror season of Movie Mindset. I'd like to welcome from the podcast Nympho Wars, Theta. Theta, welcome to Movie Mindset. Hi, you guys. It's so great to be here and to celebrate this, the spookiest of the spookiest of months.

It's the reason for the season. It's an honor and a privilege to have you for another. There were more ghouls in this one. There were ghouls in the last one we did too. Before we dive into these movies, I just wanted to ask Theda, what do horror movies and specifically Vincent Price mean to you? On the last episode, we talked sort of about like,

what horror movies mean to Hesse and I. Like for instance, I like horror movies because they sort of provide a vehicle for the return of the repressed and like sort of a channeling of a lot of our culture's deep fears and fantasies about, you know, sex and death and things like that. And Hesse likes horror movies because they're spooky.

Yes. Right. Right. Well, I, and death and things like that. And Hesse likes horror movies because they're spooky. Well, I it's it's a I'm an odd choice, I think, for this episode, because I have such I have so little general interest in horror movies and I have no I had no almost no exposure to Vincent Price before this. But I was actually just thrilled to be prompted to watch both of them. I found them both really, really great. And I'm going to probably just take a back seat while you guys discuss this and maybe chime in, because I was in general.

I like have a milk toast distaste for for unpleasantness and for the guaranteed bad outcomes that you get in horror movies. It's always so annoying when you know that first the car will break down and then one by one everyone will die. It's like so certain that I've recoiled from it, but I'm learning to I'm learning to undo that a little bit because of the thrill of actually just like gaudiness and and the possibilities of.

Of just these cheaper spectacles, not cheap in like any sense, but monetary, like that. The horror movies seem to allow you to actually be imaginative in a way that all this all the more tasteful movies just actually don't. They're being. The last man on Earth was probably made for about adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of like 500 American dollars. The mask of the Red Death, though, I mean, the set design. I mean, the costumes.

I watched this with Chris the other night. And I think in The Mask of the Red Death, they spent all of the money on the amazing sets in that movie and then just robbed a Shakespeare company for all of the costumes. Yes. Beautiful block coll colors. Beautiful. Just data. I knew you didn't like horror movies, but I asked you on for this episode specifically

because I knew you would really divide with the mask of the Red Death. I kind of felt that you would enjoy the the godiness and the, you know, the gaudy satanic decadence. Yeah, yeah. The campiness of. No, so comforting. It was I was telling Hessa that there is I feel like David Lynch has like sites rear window is a good as like one of his favorite movies.

And when asked why he goes, oh, it's just so cozy. That is just so cozy and that. And I did weirdly feel that with Mask of the Red Death. I was like, this is a cozy movie. This is a cool castle. These are fun people. I like this. And now we've mentioned gaudiness and camp.

And I don't think we're using any of those words as a ding. But when it comes to Gaudi and camp Vincent Price really is the He's on the Mount Rushmore of gaudiness and camp because he is a master of both of them And so what is it about like, you know Vincent Price was the king of horror movies? I mean, he's been in like over a hundred movies even more TV shows But what is it the voice at the beginning at the beginning of the thriller music video. Yeah. Well, yeah, he's just so extra.

I think that's part of it. He's so extra and he's just like so, you know, just has this gravitas to him. He's like tall and like has this very unique look and this like crazy mustache and like He's just like a cool old gay guy Spooky as hell. I'm like, yeah, he he brings like a charisma to everything he does that like you know whether he's chewing the scenery or like is that whether he's chewing the scenery or like, because he's also is a very, very good actor, I think, like genuinely. And I think he brings a theatricality to everything.

It's just the way he enunciates every word. And it's so odd, because it's just like, he doesn't look like the kind of guy who would be either a leading man or like an icon of horror movies. Yeah. Like he said, he seems like your friend's weird gay dad that everyone knows is gay. But he's just like, please come over for dinner. Yeah, he's weird to look at and weird to listen to.

Call your mother. You can stay over if you want. I've made Coco Von. The Real Life Interpress also a gourmet chef as well. He was a man of many varied talents. But starring in horror movies has got to be at the top of that list. We switch you to the state capital where His excellency, the governor, is speaking from the executive mansion. Further, I have, in conjunction with the federal government, declared this state to be a disaster area.

I was sent to keep you here until they come. To kill me. Vampires, alive among the lifeless, that make the night hideous with their inhuman cravings. If they are not destroyed in the flaming pits of hellfire, or staked to the ground in the light of the sun, will the unbelievable become real? A world of inanimate zombies by day, irresistible, horrifying attackers by night. Can a zombie woman's hunger for love repopulate the earth? I guess just as a way to introduce the first movie we're going to talk about today. The Last Man on Earth, directed by Ubaldo Ragonha and Sidney Sacklow, released in 1964 by American International Pictures.

Incredible pair of names right there. Ubaldo and sack of love These are your people has a I will introduce the last minute with thusly theta Going to kill you You! Hessa! The Last Man on Earth is based on a short story by the great author Richard Matheson.

It would later go on to be remade a number of times, including The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston and I Am Legend starring Will Smith. But this was the original adaptation of the Richard Matheson short story, I Am Legend, starring Will Smith. But this was the original adaptation of the Richard Matheson short story, I Am Legend, which was the first American sci-fi and horror author that decided to do a vampire narrative outside of a gothic setting

and sort of bring vampirism into a modern medical scientific context. Because in The Last Man on Earth, the world has been destroyed by a vampire plague that either kills people or turns them into night stalking ghouls who basically, not zombies because they still have a command of a few words like, Hessa,, HESSA, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU. And what I love about this is most of this movie is just Vincent Price. It's like either a dubbed voiceover

or him just walking around a house being like, this house used to fill me with joy. Now it's just filled with nothing but death. Drinking coffee used to excite me. Now it's just, now it's just, you know, now it's just slop from tools to survive. Yeah, now it is just a tool to get through the day. But yeah, like extremely low budget filmed in Rome.

And what I love about the beginning of this movie is that it is just it's just filmed in Rome and then just extras lying on the street. It's just bodies littered everywhere. And it's a really effective and frightening images of dead bodies littering a giant staircase. Yeah. And I love how obviously it's filmed in Rome, too. It's like Rome as LA, kind of. And it's just like, you know, it's panning down a street that's like,

oh, I guess this could be L.A. And it's like every single door has a window shaped like a cross on it. Maybe this isn't Los Angeles. Well, yeah, it's like a three. It's like a three part uncanny thing where where it's empty. It's European. It's has, it's European. It has a European grandeur and you say it's LA. So you immediately like you immediately leave reality in a way that is very again.

It's like very bewitching. It's and like you said, it's probably it's probably so cheap. It's just like, OK, clear everybody away for 30 minutes. Get to Italian people to lie down on the steps. And then Vincent Price walks by and you're like, Wow, I've never seen anything like this. This was just lunch. They were just not going to work.

Yes. Yeah, whatever. At 2 p.m. in Italy, every single person falls to the ground completely limp for an hour. And they just, all they had to do is, they just had to point a camera at it. Ciao, Bella. And yeah, they, there's something about, like you said, very effective. There's something about seeing cities, like, denuded of people that's very disturbing. And like it's done to great effect in this movie.

It's like a very, like you said, like a very simple but effective and unnerving, like kind of not even special effect, just like an image to be shown. One more thing I wanna say is, I just brought this up because I just watched this movie again pretty recently, but I did not know until I rewatched it that Steven Spielberg's first movie, Duel, the screenplay for that was written by Richard Matheson,

who wrote I Am Legend and a number of other famous sci-fi stories. But Hessa, I was thinking about, have you seen Duel recently? I haven't. I don't think I've ever seen Duel, actually. Okay, watch Duel in conjunction with the Fablemen's Spielberg's first and most recent movie. And it is so funny how similar they are. Like it is the same movie. One is a car. One is a car chase movie. One is a deeply personal family story.

But they're both about basically him wish casting his cucked father to stand up for himself. So it goes so deep. I love Fableman's. I love his insane sexual mom. Yeah, there was definitely a sexual style mom in that movie. It is this is a sidebar. But Fableman, I did think that Fableman's was a great example in a in like in the trauma plot environment.

It was to to to have such a really, really minor traumatic incident shape your entire life. Yeah, my parents got divorced when I was 19. It's it's really amazing. And it and it changed America. It changed the whole American movie landscape. It's it's really amazing and it changed America The shallowest of traumas and just the tiniest expression of sexuality So in the last minute or is like I said the movie begins and we see these like little like

Street scenes of like a totally abandoned city full of dead people. And we see like a church sign that says the end has come. And I like to imagine it's just Ethan Hawke's church from First Reformed. And like, yeah, he put up that sign like weeks before the apocalypse. Nothing to do with that. Yeah. And then predated the virus, you know, like it's sort of like, you know, we see these street scenes and it sort of follows into a residential neighborhood. Camera zooms in on a window and there's, there's our guy Vincent Price asleep.

His alarm goes off and then it's just like a day in the life of the last man on earth. And his voiceover is just like, there's the alarm, another day to live, better get started. And then, but what I, what I love about this movie is that like it's particular conception of the apocalypse. This is the last man on earth. He's like, OK, alarm goes off. Time to clock in at the factory. And I love this idea that like the world is over, but he's still basically going through the motions of like having a job.

Like, yeah, The work never ends. And it's just like every day is this grim procession of honing down table legs into steaks, going shopping. You need fresh garlic. You need to get a new mirror. So yeah, he is... It's so cool. I love that the beginning is this process movie of like, yeah, here's the whole process.

Yeah. And there's no threat. This is my complaint about horror movies is totally resolved by this movie, because even the the vampires that come out at night are pretty weak. They do it every night in the same way. Yeah. As routine as anything. Yeah. And they're totally washed like when he is a tomb of his wife and wakes up and it's like midnight And he's like, oh no, they'll be coming for me and there's like two outside and he just pushes them over How hard are you laughing at the end of the movie

where he's throwing smoke grenades at them and he just like throws it over the top of his shoulder and they land right at his feet? He's like, that's so funny. He just, he thinks he can live like a foot behind him. He's sprinkling rice behind her at a wedding. So yeah, Vincent Price plays Robert Neville. No, Robert Morgan.

Robert Neville was the name of the character in the Matheson short story. But yeah, we just see a day in the life of, and you're doing all of the same mind-numbingly boring errands you were doing back when everyone was alive. But he's just like, have to go top up the car with gas. And then like, essentially like his predicament is that he's still living in the same house in Los Angeles slash Rome that he was when the plague wiped out humanity.

But now he is beset, he's sort of besieged every night by his like former neighbors and colleagues who just, in the weakest form of gulery ever put on film. And so we just did Night of the Living Dead and we were talking about how the zombies in that movie, because they're sort of shambling, slow moving cadavers, you'd be like, yeah, I feel pretty confident I could survive a zombie holocaust.

Yeah, I could probably take them. Oh, this one I would be king of the world. This one, game's easy. Game's easy. I'd be going into the Colosseum and putting on like different outfits trying different methods to like kill the ghouls. It's pure fun. So like yeah, he goes through his day and like essentially like they are, it's like they're referred to as vampires and they follow like a lot of the same rules as vampires in that they're allergic to garlic They don't like seeing their reflection in a mirror and to kill them

You have to stake them through the heart And basically all of all of Vincent Price's day is just preparing for when the Sun goes down and like a gang of the most annoying vampires in the world just essentially lightly bang on his windows going, Morgan, Morgan, I know you're there, Morgan, come out. We want to kill you. But they don't have the motor skills to open a doorknob or crawl through the windows they break by just hitting it with two by fours.

And it's really funny because the first time they're like banging on the door and it's like Vincent Price is literally just like, oh, and like slumps down on his couch and with like a drink or something. And you're like, shouldn't he be worried? And then it's like, oh no, it's totally fine. And like, he's just I love his like depressed voiceover and like, we were making fun of earlier, but like my favorite line in this movie where he's like,

he fixes himself breakfast and then his voiceover says, there was a time when eating was pleasurable, now it bores me, just fuel for survival. It's like, I've read before, I mean, I forget who said it, but like the scariest part about like apocalyptic narratives is not that the world ends, it's that it actually goes on. And that's the fear in apocalyptic movies, is that like, you'll be around, like, you know,

it may seem like, oh, how lucky am I? I just happened to be born in the time of history when the apocalypse happened. It's me, the protagonist of history, yet again. But in this movie, I think it really underscores that the most horrifying thing about the end of the world is that it doesn't really end and you're still fucking shopping and, you know, picking up garbage and tossing bodies into a burning pit.

It's just like got time to make the donuts. Got to keep working. Yeah. You're so right. Yeah, it really is crazy because he's also like, you know, part of his daily task is like, you know, oh, time to grab all my my bag of steaks that I have wooden stakes and go out and like every just kill a bunch of sleeping Italians that I see on the sidewalk throw their bodies into the big burning pit. And it's like this, you know, never ending task of like, oh, time to kill all like a hundred million people

in the world around me. And like, hopefully, hopefully I'll get it done someday. It's like a total, you know, fighting against the tide of like, he's never going to be able to get this done. And it like barely helps because they still bang on his door every night. Yeah, the vampires in this movie, I would say, are not so much scary as annoying, you know? Yeah.

It's just like, if I could get the vampire situation in my neighborhood to the point where they aren't just banging on my door every night going, Will, Will! I'd be all right, it would be fine, but you know, like, he's out shopping every day. I love his voiceover in this movie. He's like, cars out of gas, one more stop I'll have to make.

And I swear to God, he has the same internal monologue that I do when I'm just going shopping on a normal day. Pre-apocalypse. He really, that's maybe the thing that is so also weirdly so comforting about it, is that he is not he doesn't even seem that appalled by the prospect of doing this every day forever, except for like in a few minor moments. But generally, he feels pretty resigned to it. Pretty. It feels pretty like, yeah.

I think it's because like, and this is like, I think like one of the earlier, like apocalyptic narratives as we understand them today with like a city full of dead people and like, you know, like streets just littered with bodies. But I think I think like this sort of post apocalyptic subject, The Last Man on Earth, I think the movie kind of underscores that we're already lost our humanity, you know, like going to work every day, or just sort of like, that's why it's easy for him

and that he's not appalled by the daily body cleanup in his neighborhood. Because it just, it feels, I mean, like he's, I guess a little bit lonelier now, but it just feels so similar to what things were like before everyone was dead or a vampire. And as long as you're talking about it, like I want to talk about my favorite scene in the movie, which is like after

spending a day of just robotically and methodically killing more and more people like of his former neighbors, crossing them off the list, staking them in the heart, tossing their bodies in a burn pit. And then it's like, okay, it's five o'clock time to knock off. And then he just watches home movies of his dead wife and daughter. And this is really the Vincent Price acting. This is the Vincent Price is this is what he brings to the table is a certain kind of male hysteria. And has so we talked about the end of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre where Sally's

shrieking in the back of that pickup truck as she drives it as they drive away from Leatherface turns into a maniacal kind of laughter and that is all all praise and credit do to the great one Vincent Price for really pioneering how much you can turn laughter into a total break, emotional breakdown. A whale, a whaling sob. Oh, God. Absolutely. So good. Then he's like, yeah, 12 hours to kill until the sun rises. Yeah, time to play some jazz records and relax while the ghouls amass outside my door.

He seems to sleep well. He's come out. They say they they just say in a low, velvety voice, you know, Morgan, Morgan. He does is off on the couch. He wakes up. He seems pretty well rested. It's it's kind of it's like an experimental music album being performed for him at outside his door. Morgan.

And then banging noises. Number nine. Number nine, Morgan. Number nine. I could imagine, I could imagine dozing off on those conditions. Yeah. Yeah. A low chant directly addressed to you.

And like, they keep saying, Morgan Morgan come out, Morgan come out. Maybe they just want to hang out with him. And then by the end of the movie, it does very much become about. What if he just tried to befriend the ghouls? Maybe they weren't trying to kill him. That's literally... Maybe they were lonely too. It's so like, it's so funny.

It's like there's a really famous like review of the video game doom from the 90s from like I forgot where but like they this like Publication gave it a really bad score and was like why do you have to kill the monsters? Why can't you try and be friends with them or talk to them? Maybe they make you could connect with them Maybe you have something in common with them and it's very much like that's the actual twist of this movie. You never asked. You never asked if I was okay or not. It just drove a stake through my heart. Morgan.

Not to disrespect that particular review of the video game doom, but it is pretty clear that everything You're killing in the video game doom is literally a demon from the pit of hell It's more right because they are just basically long COVID sufferers and he's just And but in in his defense they do say when he gets home, I do remember specifically one of them saying, there is Morgan kill him. Yeah. So can this can somebody clarify this for me? So he because like because at the end that he is there, they are like he's

they're like, we think you're the monster or whatever. I sort of skip ahead. But like, what does he do? There there is a bunch of undead and then there's a bunch of dead. So some people get the virus and they just die like his family. Or right. Or and then those people come back to life unless they're burned. They're thrown into this big pit. Unless they're staked and burned, I think people come back to life unless they're burned, they're thrown into this big pit.

Unless they're staked and burned, I think they come back. The reason that, yeah, the reason his family didn't come back, I think, is that they get thrown into the garbage truck from the movie Rabbit. And then they cart it off to die. And just rolled down a hill that is always on fire. Yes, exactly. And then what he does in the day is he finds a bunch of people that are just lying on the street and then he stakes them while they're out.

Yeah, because they sleep during the day or they can't go out during the day. And like, you know, maybe some of the bodies are just people who have been killed in other ways. So they're not really going to maybe resurrect and they're they can they're they're free to just be corpses on the street in the normal style corpses littering. Yeah, normal, normal, normal corpses, normal no big deal. They're just mapping, mapping. So he's tracking them down, he's tracking them down. He's like crossing off, he has a map of his neighborhood and he's clearing it out as best he can. That's what he's doing. Okay, okay, I'm so stupid. I'm so fucking dumb.

He's like sort of a neighborhood watch except. There's no neighborhood left Yeah Killing everyone okay, just like Hesitheta like do you ever like when you're on the subway or just walking around New York City of a day? Do you ever like fantasize to yourself like what if these 8 million people were just dead like wouldn't that make things easier like you were just like I don't know like as a kid or even presently you ever have this fantasy of being like the last person on earth oh yeah I've thought about it as a kid and such and been like wow it would be so cool I could like I could go to the mall and like walk around

I could go to the mall and like walk around. I have a frozen world fantasy. There was like everything freezes and you go and get a bunch of free candy or something. But I'm too, again, I'm too milk toast to imagine everybody being wiped out. But there was something like that, I think, during the early lockdown period, where like you go, Oh, get a look at those buildings, get a look at these big empty cavities of space all over the all over the city. And and there is some of that. There is some sort of sort of sexy.

It's like a big it's like how in J.G. Ballard, there's like always these big empty swimming pools or abandoned shopping malls. And it's like, oh, there are these, it would be fun to just explore these without somebody coming along to get you in trouble or interrupt. Or like the concrete cityscapes of like urban landscapes and these kind of the steel and glass of like luxury condominiums and high rises contrasted with like the stink and depravity of human beings.

Yes. Yes. Rid of them just a little bit. Exactly. I would say that both of these movies, The Last Man on Earth and The Mask of the Red Death, they do be hitting different as the kids say, certainly post-COVID. Both of these movies are very, very much of the Red Death. They do be hitting different, as the kids say, certainly post-COVID.

Both of these movies are very, very much of the moment. So it seemed very timely and they're in very many respects. Very COVID films. Yeah. So, yes. So I love the scene where like he has his he has his total meltdown watching his old home movies. But like basically, it he wakes up again and he's just like he decides to take the day off and he's like no I'm not

clocking into the body-burning factory today I'm gonna visit my wife's coffin yeah yeah and then he just goes to like a mausoleum and basically falls asleep next to his wife's coffin and Before the before realizing he oversleeps and then he has to like run home and like very very weakly pushes Morgan guy out of like a way from this door and he's like, okay, that was scary. I almost died It's really extraordinary. I mean how just how easily he gets home This is what I realized this This was I was like, I like this.

This is like what I what I actually don't like in these horror movies is actually when things are frightening. I thought that like actually, but like I love the OK. Basically, there's a premise. There's some spooky people you have to get home. It's nightfall. Love it. And then you go like on a very easy level of a video game or something. And you gingerly push them aside and go, whoo, whoo, whoo.

And then and then show yourself inside and you have a. And then you have access to all the fun, you know, side activities in the video game, like putting on a jazz record or using the lathe. Yeah, they don't only likes the the tutorial levels of video games. I do. I do. I do. I don't like this. I don't like this agenda. And even well, he even tells the girl at the end, like, she's like, how like, how are you surviving so well?

And he's like, it's so easy. They suck. Yeah, that is what you realize. Maybe is the it's that his immunity to the virus might also... It feels like in terms of its characterization, it's related to his ability to just get by in this horrible world. Like that is his immunity. He's like, I find this incredibly easy.

What is your problem? Like like why are you freaking out? Literally So yeah, the the like the middle section of the movie is a flashback like pre-apocalypse, which is sort of introduced by his home movies and his laughter crying meltdown But like we see that like the Morgan guy is his co-worker from the lab that he works in. And then we see, I love it goes from the home movie

to him filming the home movie three years ago. And I love his wife is the perfect 1960s housewife. And when she knows the camera's on her, she goes, oh no, my hair, my makeup. And she has this perfectly coiffed do and like pearls on and everything. She's like, Oh, I'm not ready for the camera. Yes, perfect. This looks like Jackie Onassis. Yeah, I'm sure that sounds that looked to me like an Italian woman. Am I wrong? That's just an Italian.

Oh, yeah. They're all they're all I mean, and his friend is one of the most Italian looking men I've ever seen. Literally, this incredible shock of blonde hair that is just like looks like a Lego piece almost perfect it is and he has the thick glasses and like perfect, you know, Italian suit. It's just like so, so clearly an Italian man. Hello there, Morgan. Good to see you again. And yeah, his co-worker, who in the present day is a vampire. It's like they're celebrating his daughter's like third or fourth,

you know, his daughter's birthday party But his colleague from the disease laboratory comes to basically like hey Have you heard these reports about the the Wuhan Virology lab? But Not trying to hear it and I like that they refer to it as that like that as Europe's disease And it's just like yeah, the European disease is not just syphilis anymore. It's vampirism. Yeah, that that is that tracks that tracks. Those I remember.

I remember the somebody being like, well, it's not like we're in Wuhan. I was I remember early covid like trying to cancel a cancel a travel gig because I was because you were like, you're the guy that was like reading the paper. I mean, like, oh, and so he's like, well, we're not in Europe. We're not in Italy. Yeah, we can't just go around canceling gigs. Yeah, that tracks. Yeah. And, you know, like Vincent Price is like, it's all these warnings about,

you know, oh, hey, the dead are coming back to life. And he's like, I'm a scientist, not an alarmist. And he's a poppycock. Yeah. And then he's like, you know, right now, our, you know, our, our, our problem is we need to cut this birthday cake. And then it just jumps ahead in time. And his like daughter is under like a sick tent being like, I can't see you. That part is really upsetting. Actually, it was really I was like, wow, this is pretty heavy to be put in this like old movie. Yeah. The blind daughter staged as a sad thing and not a scary thing to start.

Yeah. Keep harping on this. But it's just like she's she doesn't go like exorcist and start being like, ah, she's under a mosquito net going with mom. Where are you? I can't see anything. She's just a normal kid being sort of sad. You know that. Yeah. Affecting. Absolutely. You know, we begin to like, you know, similar to Night of the Living Dead, we get like media reports about like instructing you to burn the bodies

of these victims and then these like sort of garbage collection crews that are just going around, like taking people out of their house and throwing them in the burn pit. Yeah. And it's just like in the flashback, it's like Vincent Price, the rationalist, the scientist, like begins to lose his sense of rationality and sense of like, hey, like, hey, like we've dealt with pandemics before, like, you know, we'll solve this one. OK. And then it just gets worse and worse and worse. And kill anyone. Yeah.

We survived bird flu. Swine flu came and went. I do love that his like his rationalism is like the last of it to go is kind of him with his daughter when his wife is like, oh, I mean, like, we need to call a doctor, we have to call a doctor. And he's like, they're just gonna throw her in the burn pit if we call a doctor. Yeah. And that's how it ends up happening. It's like truly.

And like as his wife and daughter are dying, I mean this is sort of like a prophecy of things to come What does he do? He goes to work. He goes to work and there's like one other guy in the virus lab being like You're here. What the fuck? And then he's like, you know, he's still holding on to this idea. He's like, you know, like man that there's I don't deny He says I don't deny that there's some strange evolutionary process going on, but mankind will not be destroyed. It will go on somehow. And the thing is, he was right, it does continue, but perhaps not in the form he was originally thinking of. So basically, he misses the death of his wife and daughter because he goes to work like a fucking asshole.

And he comes home and they're dragging his daughter out. Yeah, he comes home right in time to see the truck take them to the burn pit. And then it's like, I recently just watched Wayne's World 2, where he's just like, but hey, my girlfriend's in there, and the bouncer's like, buddy, there's a lot of guys' girlfriends in there.

In this he's like, no, my daughter is in there! And the guy literally says, buddy, there's a lot of daughters in there It's like burnt being burned in a giant pile. Yeah, he's like my daughter's in there, too And he says it maybe it's also effective the dubbing or whatever, but he says it in a really casual way Very striking. He's like he's like this is my daughter right here. You don't see me crying This is my daughter right here. And then you don't see me crying. This is my son. Yeah, yeah. And he did. He's just like, oh, I guess it's I guess he.

I mean, there is a nice thing where the set piece leads the way and not like a plausible scenario. It's like he because he just chases a truck I guess to the thing and then they got a bag in hand. He's like that's my daughter. That's just a bag. You need that scene to happen. It's just his daughter that's taken to the burn pit and then he goes back home and his wife has like gone blind so she's next and he that's taken to the burn pit. And then he goes back home and his wife has gone blind. So she's next. And he vows not to have her burned.

He vows to retain hope for some dignity in death. And he takes her to the countryside and buries her. Bad move. She comes back to life, emerges from the grave, and assaults him in his home. And I thought actually the scene where he opens up the door and his undead wife is just staring at him was actually very scary. And he comes in like and it focuses on her eyes.

Yeah, I thought that was all jacked up. Yeah, she's looking right at the lens. Yeah. A fun contrast from the first scene where she's like, Oh, my hair and makeup is all messed up. And then and she looks perfect. And then in this one, she just appears at the door with her hair completely like jacked up and her face covered in dirt. Just like, oh, she's having a no makeup.

She showed up and she did a no makeup makeup. Yeah. And it's horrifying. So at that point, the flashback ends and we're back in the present day. And like, you know, the ghouls are outside. And then I also love I also love this movie like when it's morning time like Vincent Price he goes to sleep every night and like a full suit he like he wakes up and he's still wearing like a tweed jacket button-up like sweater over it like tucked in you know and he's just that was just the style of the times you have to understand a man would go to

sleep in his leisure wear he must wake up exactly as he went down, ready for work. And like, yes, like the ghouls, I love I love where the ghouls just trash his car. Like they kick it in the house and they break all the windows in his car and like, you know, stab the tires or whatever. And then he gets up and we get another great sort of like his board voiceover where he's just like, his wits must be slipping. If he think breaking my car, I'll just go get a new one.

Then he goes shopping for a car and he goes, this convertible would be nice, but I can't think of comfort. There was a time when I would shop for cars. Now I'm shopping for a hearse. This station wagon will have to do. Not that to that line to me was the standout line in the whole movie. That is like a great, great line. So well delivered, you know, because like the voiceovers.

Hearses basically are just station wagons. Yeah, I mean, well, that's like that's true as well. I love that he the voiceover is it really is giving like PSA like 60s PSA like watch out, Billy. Don't dive in the shallow end of the pool. You could harm yourself. Make sure you go to the deep end, but don't run there. There was a time.

There was a time when I would have stopped for railroad crossings. Now I don't care. There are no more trains to kill me. Exactly like that. I really didn't. His voice really is extraordinary. It's a very extraordinary thing that that voice imprinted somehow on this, like his zeitgeist, because it's so gay.

It's such a gay voice. Yes. And he wasn't like a big out and about gay, but he was gay. Right. Like at the end of his life, he was like, you know, tell you what, I was a little bit gay. Yeah, he was he was bisexual, I think is how he described it. Well, he sounded full gay. I'm fully. He has a daughter.

He does have a daughter, but. Very, very nasal, very, very high, very high. I guess that is spooky. I would have very spooky, very ghoulish. And you know, like he was he was born in shit like I think Ohio fuck let me look this up Just a small he's just a small town boy. Oh, he's born in st. Louis, Missouri I think there's like it's it's like yeah, his is his gay voice and his I don't know

How should I describe this mincing acting style? But can I say that can I say that? Yeah, but but also like, I think you're right. There's something European and theatrical about his delivery, which doesn't, it makes him seem like not, he's very American, but not American. And I think that kind of uncanny valley is what makes him such a good horror movie star, especially in the Mask of the Red Death

and the, as we'll be talking about the Roger Corman, Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, because he seems like of a different time, but also relatable in a way. Yes, yes. Great legs for tights, too. He has great legs for tights and baggy shorts. So unlike his new day, like basically in the third act of the movie, he discovers that he is not alone. First he finds a dog and then a woman, but they're both dead.

And like that's the saddest part of the movie is when he finds this like lost, abandoned dog and he's like, come back, come back. I'll go anywhere to find this dog. And then like the dog comes right outside his door and he gives it a bath. And he's like, there isn't it nice to be clean. But then he tests the dog's blood and it's dead. And it's, it's like, yes, yes. The next thing is him burying the dog. And that's what we discover is.

With a stake in it. Yeah. There's a little bag with a little dog bag. It's just a bag with a stake in the middle of it. It's horrible. It's a a bag with a steak just in the middle of it. It's horrible. It's a great cut. But then he is confronted by a woman in the light of day. And who is like he and also he finds bodies that have been staked but with like harpoons.

With iron stakes. With iron harpoons. Like not his signature wooden stake. So he it dawns on him that there are other people alive in the eternal city of Rome. So he finds a woman and he's like, oh, I can help you, and he brings her back to his bachelor pad.

But he's kind of suspicious about what her deal is, and he shakes some garlic at her, and she's like, no,, kind of suspicious about what her deal is and he like shakes some garlic at her and she's like, no, I just have a nervous stomach. Trust me, I'm not a vampire. Trust me. Trust me. I just don't like having reams of garlic waves in my face like out of the blue. I'm just a little put off by that.

Well, she's a vampire. You're just freaking me out, man. I don't want to. It would be that. Well, she's a vampire. You're just freaking me out, man. I don't want to It would be weird it would be kind of weird just go like No, she he's right. She's a damn vampire. So like not not only is she able of to walk around during the daytime, but also she is like retained all of her mental faculties unlike the The goon squad outside his house every night. But there's something off of there,

like we see her, she has a little hypodermic, and she's giving herself injections of some kind. And what he finds out is that she has the disease, she has the virus, but they have, there's some sort of new civilization or community that has developed, that has figured out a way to kind of like contain the virus through like like a daily regimen. I mean, yeah, get Pfizer on this.

You have to buy it every day. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're having to get hourly daily and administer these injections. And like, that's the more advanced. That's like the more advanced. There is this moment he's like, you're doing all this and and she's basically like, yeah, dumb like you dumb fuck like you hillbilly. Like we've all been working on this.

You're you're basically in the dark ages. He gets sort of. Yeah. And what she tells him is that like I was sent to you like undercover to find out how much you knew about the virus, but I've come to realize that you know far less than we do. You know nothing. Yeah.

Yeah. And which I think is a good. Yeah, it works very well as a blow to his grandiosity as the king of the world, basically. Yeah, the last man on earth and he's like oh, wait, no, I suck at this. No, he's just a he's just a forgotten man on Earth. Yeah. Doing shop. We're shopping. And not only that, but he's like he's the great boogeyman to them.

He's like the title of the math is in the story. I am legend is that like, you know, like, yeah, like he he is the vampire to the new form of humanity of like the post virus humanity that is like kind of semi cured themselves. But like he does not know that they still have their humanity. So he's been going out every day, butchering them by the hundreds and throwing their bodies in pits. But they were just like regular people, essentially. Well, regular people like maybe a little bit of light photosensitivity. But that's it. And he has left their blood drained corpses all over the city. So like,

in effect, he is actually the vampire. He is the monster to them. And there is no place for him in this like new society of long COVID sufferers because he's killed so many of them. But yeah, so he he is able to whip up a vaccine like he does a little operation warp speed. And you know, finds he he hypothesizes that he has an immunity to the virus because he was bitten by a vampire bat in like Panama years ago, that perhaps had some early form of the virus. You know, he went to the Wuhan wet market before it got to the wet market. I was in Panama for a sex tour. I mean, for a fun vacation. He ate the pangolin soup and he got some sort of immunity.

And he then is able to use his blood to create like a full vaccine that like completely eradicates the virus. And like he tests it on the woman and she's not allergic to garlic anymore and she's like I can eat Italian again yeah yeah it's like it's been so hard living here in Rome, I mean LA. It's been so hard living in Los Angeles with this garlic allergy but basically like she tells him like she realizes that like he's not a monster he just doesn't understand and she's like you got to get out of here like I basically they're already on their way to come kill you and then we see like the like the real goon squad shows up of just like a bunch of guys and like black

turtlenecks off the back of like a pickup truck and they have guns and harpoons and they come in and just like Wipe out all of the like mark one ghouls in front of his house because they're like No, we're to kill you look at good. Yes get these bums out of the way So yeah like then we get the scene of him Like they're rolling deep and like they chase him out of his house and like he's running around then we get the hilarious scene Of he somehow finds an armory which is really funny because it's like a block away from his house It would have been better if he had found that a couple months earlier. He would have had all these guns and grenades and stuff.

But then we get, of course, the hilarious scene of Vincent Price being chased around and like Mr. Burns style throwing smoke grenades at this like army of men chasing him. Yes, it took me a second. It's like that's what you got out of the armory. chasing him. Yes, it took me a second. It's like, that's what you got out of the armory. There's a bunch of guns and stuff. He grabs a huge, like Easter basket full of what I guess are smoke bombs. And then he daintily gingerly throws them behind him and then they give the people a little mild sniffle. They just continue to close in. Yeah, it's very much... Well, I think maybe he was feeling, you know, disillusioned by killing after he discovered, oh, they have like brains and like can think and stuff.

That's a good point, Hesse. That's a good point. I would also say that this is another example of reverse engineering in a good way where it is nice, you know, in the climax to have a bunch of smoke around. Very, very beautiful. So you're just having a, you know. I have to go into a church with a bunch of smoke. Yeah. A big church, a bunch of smoke. Love it. Classic LA giant Catholic church.

So yeah, the last thing in the movie is that they chase him into a church and they like harpoon him through the chest, like very much like you know Jesus Christ style and then but like for all of his uh refound humanity like his last words in the movie I love it he's just screaming at them going you're you're all freaks all of you freaks mutations I'm a man I'm the last man it's like uh day of the dead choke on it But no it is I loved him saying you're all freaks But it's so great. I want that to be my last one My family and loved ones surrounding me

You're all freaks. Notations. That'd be a great way to go out. But what I like about this movie is, like I said, the sort of banality of the end of the world and also the very strong suggestion that human beings have already kind of de dehumanized ourselves. Like the viral vampire apocalypse is just the kind of metaphorical expression of our collective loss of humanity through, you know, like our jobs, daily modern life is that we have kind of dehumanized ourselves. We've separated ourselves from other people. We don't see our neighbors or colleagues as people anymore. We just see them as like, you know, objects to be thrown in a pit

should it become necessary at some point. Yes, it's very and it's very I feel like there is I haven't it's a hard I don't have my thoughts aren't fully formed on this, but just like because we live in this age of of of everything feeling like the end of days that everybody is it feels kind of a little bit masturbatory. Everybody is very worried about the other shoe dropping, you know, like the bomb going off or the volcanoes, whatever. But I feel like just apocalypse narratives, apocalypse movies are always about the world

we are in, which is already has already died. It's it's you know, I mean, yeah, it's not this new road, neurotic anxiety about the future. It's always a reflection of the part of the world that's already been irrecoverably lost. Yeah. Yes. That we were talking about that in that school. We talked about that last last episode with Night of the Living Dead,

where they're like they have no idea that the already zombies are roaming the world and like they're just on a nice drive in the countryside. Yes, yes. So yeah, that is The Last Man on Earth. That's a data. Thank you. Thank you.

We're now moving on to Roger Cormans, Mask of the Red Death, which is really, The Last Man on Earth is a movie about how boring disease in the end of the world is, or just like, you know, how kind of like dehumanize you are. Mask of the Red Death is basically a movie about how fun and cool the end of the world is. Yeah. Or just like how much fun, how much decadent fun you can have in the end of days. The mask of the Red Death, personalized by the motion picture screen's prince of horror, Vincent Price.

Corrupted. No, I beg of you. Mercy, mercy. With the devil's own darling, Hazel Court. Lord Satan, send me a demon, so I may know I'm to be your wife. And a lost, virginal angel of innocence, Jane Asher. I want to help save your soul,

so you can join me in the glories of hell. No! Never! She's a woman cursed by Satan's seneschal, whose very existence turns the white rose blood red. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls! Lavishly he plants his corrupting seeds of sin, spreading living terror that not even the unsullied can escape. Nor can one who craves all the forbidden pleasures of the depraved. Each man creates his own heaven, his own hell. Let me see your face.

We are back and moving on from The Last Man on Earth to 1964 as The Mask of the Red Death directed by Roger Corman and of course based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. But before we get into The Mask of the Red Death, I do want to talk a little bit about American International Pictures, which produced both of these movies and the kind of entertainment lawyer turned sort of indie studio executive Samuel Arkoff, who was sort of the impresario behind Coramand and a lot of these Vincent Price movies.

But basically it was an independent film studio that did a lot of these kind of like schlocky B movies that are like by now considered, you know, like masterpieces. But I think the interesting thing about them is that they were the first film studio to specifically like produce movies and market them to teenage boys.

Because what they realized in the 60s is that adults watch television, but teenagers, there was a huge untapped market specifically for teenage boys. And I was looking up Samuel Arkoff and this is to read this. The A.I.P. publicity department devised a strategy called the Peter Pan syndrome based on these following Principles that are like of just about the truest things I've ever heard anyone say about movies The Peter Pan syndrome says states that a a younger child will watch anything an older child will watch B an older child will not watch anything a younger child will watch B. An older child will not watch anything a younger child will watch. C. A girl will watch anything a boy will watch.

And D. A boy will not watch anything a girl will watch. So therefore, to catch your greatest audience, you zero in on the 19-year-old male. That's studio-exec mindset. Oh man. That's studio exact mindset. And then in light of the Mask of the Red Death, Samuel Arkoff also had what he called like the Arkoff formula for movies that he produced. And they had to have the following. This is, you know, based on his name, A for action, in parentheses, exciting, entertaining drama, R for revolution, novel or controversial themes and ideas. K killing a modicum of violence.

O oratory notable dialogue and speeches. F fantasy acted out fantasies common to the audience. And finally the last F for fornication sex appeal for young adults. And the mask of the Red Death has all of these elements. All of these. That's so magical. That's also it's a that I feel like I feel like they're playing a little fast and loose there with oratory. Yeah, that feels like a filler one. But I'm glad if it got any great oratory into these movies. I feel like it is.

Oh, I mean, I think I think Vincent Price brings the oratory by simply every time He opens his mouth. It's like you feel like he's orating. He's not speaking You know, he's not just delivering. Why have you? Rating has a theta. Have you heard of the Lord of Flies? Lucifer the fallen angel Great and This is where I'm so excited. This is so great. And yeah, and it's funny, like, that this was like the 19-year-old male formula, because, you know, like, there's definitely some sex and violence in this movie, but it is funny

to think in 1964, like, how do we get teenage boys into movies? Like, I don't know, oh, I don't know, put Vincent Price in it and have it be based on an Edgar Allan Poe story filled withilled with costume, color and set design. Yes. Yeah. No, absolutely. It's like, damn, teenage boys were so much fruitier. Yeah, they had they had camp values. They're all. Yes, absolutely.

Love tights. And one more sort of movie mindset connection with Roger Corman's The Mask of the Red Death is that Nicholas Rogue was the director of photography on this movie. And you can really tell. No way. It's like there's there are so many of those like so I'd say like I think there's something like eight Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. They're all really good.

We chose Mask of the Red Death because of the Nicholas Rogue connection. And that it is like, it's the most, as I think it was considered not successful. I think Arkhov said it was because it was too arty farty compared to the other ones. And like with Rogue cinematography, it's like Corman was really going for something here,

not just like a straight horror movie, like for instance, The Pit and the Pendulum or The Tomb of Lygia or like some of the other Corman Po adaptations. But like, but I think this is largely considered the best of them. And it's because I mean, the colors in this movie are incredible. And like just that opening scene of the old woman And it's just like this like sort of foggy more and then just the figure in red Sitting underneath a dead tree and it's this like it's it's it's all filmed on set But I love that look of like out like of the constructed sets doubling for the outdoors as a I love that look in movies

It's so good. It's so much better time to really. What would they film this shit? Yeah. Well, this is this. This was like because this was the first one that I watched of these. And and and and like I immediately like three seconds in. I was like, this is so great. This is now finally, it's like a fable.

This, because I feel like it's actually very hard to get this in movies now. Then it's hard to even ask for it for movies. But like within three seconds, you're like, this is a fable, we're on a set, there's an old woman, she's gonna meet a guy, that's how it starts. It's not like, it's like like Hesse's in bed and there's an alarm clock and just to wake up and just put on her clothes

and just to go, you know, like it's like we're in we're in it. Right. I like these these young and archetype type, you know, characters. It's like on the screen. Yeah. And yeah, Nicholas Rogue did not have to go as hard as he did with the cinematography in this movie. Because it is, because this is like, once again,

like, you know, a campy bee picture, but like this movie is gorgeous. And we'll get into like Prince Prospero and his like colored bathrooms. And just the whole set design of the castle. But the opening scene is, yeah, like this hunched over, it's like it's set in like, I don't know, in like 17th century Italy or something like that.

And it's this like peasant crone hunched over, like, you know, dragging kindling back to her hovel. And comes across like this ethereal figure clad entirely in red, who tells her that the day of reckoning is at hand, and then bleeds from his palm onto a white rose, which then turns blood red. And you're like, I was watching this with Chris,

and he said, reminded him of the Stefan Heck tweet about like a gypsy overturns a tarot card, and it's a picture of me and a hot air balloon flying into like, pi power lines. And then he's like,'s like is this bad? Maybe it's fine. Maybe it's a good Prom I'm getting asked to prom She goes to her her awful peasant village and then they're like make way for Prince Prospero

And then the one of the first scenes of this movie is a baby being nearly trampled to death by horses Vincent Price plays Prince Prospero who is like the asshole overlord of like, you know, he just like he him and his crew just like roll up to this like peasant village just to stunt on them and tell them how shitty they are. Yeah, like they have all the food you gave them this year. Yeah, yeah. Goodbye. Yeah, so like take in taxation all their food for the winter.

And he's like, any complaints from anyone? Yes. And then like at some point, they're, but please Prince, like it's cold, like we have no place to stay. And he's like burrow in the ground, like the animals he says, like he says, eat nuts like squirrels do or something like that. He's he's a real, yeah. Vincent Price is loving being evil in this movie.

And like he's having so much fun being the most evil guy in the world in this movie. Yes. He is, yeah. And original to this screenplay in its adaptation of Poe's Mask of the Red Death is that it is an invention of the screenwriter that they make Prince Prospero a Satanist in this movie, which I think works really well.

Oh, it works so well. And the message of the movie, like the final resolution of everything and like the moral system within the movie, even though like Prince Prospero is kind of wrong, it is like kind of a Satanist type of message. It's not like a Catholic or Christian message. It's very, it's very strange because I think like the ideology of this movie is can be summed up as like, you know, each man makes his own heaven and his own hell. And then it's like, oh, damn, that's like that's kind of swag.

It's like it's not a Catholic message at all or a Christian message, which is like very interesting to see in like an American movie that deals with Satanism directly in that usually there has to be an exact like, you know, rebuking of those values. But in this, it's like, yeah, no, you can be a Satanist, but don't be surprised when the Red Death comes and gets you, because the Red Death has no master. I mean, yeah, I think this movie does a credible job of expressing the values and culture of Satanists in a way that isn't offensive.

I mean, I think it's credible. I think like probably some real Satanists worked on this movie. So it wasn't like wasn't the fake Hollywood version of Satanism. This was, you know, do what that will. And now she'll be the whole of the law. I like the scene where he explains to the young Christian wench about Christianity by explaining to her how Falcons are trained. And he says, their eyes are sewn shut and they suffer.

They suffer with humility, with impatience, the whims of their God, just like you. And it's like, you know, Christianity has blinded you to, you know, like the to the the the the pleasures of surrendering to decadence and nihilism, essentially. And so basically, so the Red Death has hit this village and Prince Prospero's... so first of all, there's a young man who saves the baby from being trampled by Prince Prospero and he's sort of like a revolutionary. He's like, hey, you shouldn't take all our food and women and whatever and

then they're like, that's more pie in the sky magical thing from a libtard. Seize him. And so it's like this young woman, it's her father and her lover. And Prince Prospero, he sees that. Like Jane Asher, the beautiful, sexy Jane Asher. She's very sexual.

Very beautiful, very sexual. She's hitting the Arkov whatever. Yeah. She's hitting one of those checkpoints. Fornication. Redheads. You've got to have redheads in movies. Yeah.

And Prince Frost is going to have a little fun with them and basically make her choose which one of them is going to live. But before that happens, they realize that the Red Death has hit this village, and then it's just like, oops, we'll have to postpone this. I'm just going to live. But before that happens, they realize that the Red Death has hit this village and then it's just like, oops, we'll have to postpone this. I'm just going to burn the village down.

So they they burn all these peasants out of their homes. And I said I said a note here where I just say, I love seeing people on fire in movies. Like any time, any time I like, there's a stunt man just like a body like shot like toe to head head fully engulfed in flame Just like waving their hands violently. Absolutely. That is that to me is movie magic Points and bonus points in this one. There's one person on fire who has a fake baby in their arms. Yeah Can we talk a little bit about the costumes in this movie and the fucking

get ups that they put Vincent Price in as Prince Prospero are so funny. Like I said I watched this with Chris and Catherine the other night and Chris said it's giving prop closet and then described the first the first outfit we see Prince Prospero in he said like it's like he's wearing Aquaman's tunic and a mariachi hat. Yes, it's so cool. I always like, for all of the Vincent Price, Roger Corman Poe collabs, I always think it's funny to think like,

like Vincent Price shows up in his own clothes. Yeah, so so he he he kidnaps this buxom wench, her father and her lover and brings him brings them back to his like Castle of satanic decadence. Then they're like we meet some of the other like nobles that like are under his in his sort of satanic cult, including the noble Alfredo is played by the same actor who plays the writer who is paralyzed and his wife raped and killed in a clockwork orange. Oh my God. I think Patrick McGee, Patrick McGee. Yeah.

Who's just one of the great creepy faces. Oh, yeah. He also he was also in. He played Marquis de Sade in this movie, Mara Sade, because he's like a royal Shakespeare guy. He was like a real Shakespeare company guy. And he's it was great to see him here as just an evil Italian shitty Italian guy.

The great B plot. But one of the things I was thinking about watching this movie is like, imagine the Jane Asher character. Imagine like the 24 hours of her life, like that day where it's like you wake up, baby nearly tripled, village burned to the ground, plague kills all of your relatives, friends and loved ones, brother and lover kidnapped by sadistic pervert. Then you're taken to a castle and washed in a big golden goose bath. Did you guys like the goose bathtub in this?

I love the goose bathtub, and I loved that when she was like the goose bathtub in this? I love the goose bathtub and I love that when she was in the goose bathtub and Vincent Price walks in with his like sister slash a female protege lover type person. Yeah. Yes. And Jane Asher is immediately like, you shouldn't be in here. And he just looks at all the women in the room bathing her and he's like, everyone leave. Just like, oh, you're like, I shouldn't be in here. Why don't you? Why don't I make things weird? I mean, you know,

there is a there is a there is a nice thing in the in the young lady also who she is. She has a great equanimity, like you're saying, that she's gone through this whole day and then she's in this big bathtub and she does seem she's not kicking and screaming. Really? Is she my crazy? She's sort of like she really is like very she's like, oh, God will deliver me because I love I love God and She's beautiful simpleton

Yeah, absolutely. He's like really You see what I will see what I do with your lover and your father then see if you believe in God after that Yeah, and you know see like yeah, he wants to have some fun with her He wants to corrupt this this good Christianch. And he's like, you know, I hope you enjoyed the goosebath. Now, now on to my court of perverts. And like most of this movie takes place in this, like in his sort of grand hall of his castle. And it's just like the set design

this movie is out of control. Cool. Like everything is so, everything is so brightly lit. And then we get into that sequence That's like returned to over and over again of that series of rooms that Prince Prospero has that each have their own color Where everything is just all one color and just the and then like oftentimes like they're there Like it's shot where you can see like it's like a long hallway and you can see each room after each other So like some shots are like all yellow and then there's like or all white.

And then like when the camera changes again, you see like down the hallway of like these series of colors. And it's just like like a Russian nesting doll of colored rooms kind of. It's just like they were having credible. Yeah. People read the story. Is this in the story or is this a fabrication for the movie? Oh, this is the story. The I think the whole story takes place in that hallway.

I think most of it, or if not all of it, takes place. And the final room at the end of the hallway is like his black room where he has his like altar to Satan or whatever. I think like that was replaced in the story. It's a black clock that is like the the omen at the end of everything. I see. But in this one, I don't know if you notice in his Grant Hall, he has a pit in the pendulum clock because like all the all the Corman at Drell and Poe movies are kind of mashups of like a number of different stories.

Like in this one, the the dwarf character, which, by the way, we got to talk about the fact that they cast a child and dubbed her voice with an adult woman That was really confusing to me They did? That's true, okay And like the child is like in love with the dwarf Man, adult male dwarf

Yeah, but in the world, and this is quite confusing, Hessa and Theodore, but in the world of the movie That is supposed to be an adult female dwarf. But like we are watching this. And once again, Chris was like, this is like in the 60s. So they probably had a dwarf actress to portray this role, but they were probably like, oh, she's not hot enough. Let's just cast an eight year old girl and dub her voice. Absolutely. Yeah.

So as part of the Court of Perverts, he has these like, you know, dancing minstrels and dwarves, you know, like as one does, if you're a evil lord in the castle, you got to have some. Yeah, you got to have some minstrels and jesters and a few dancing dwarves. And yeah, and I the dwarf plot line of this movie is like the kind of B plot is not in Mask of the Red Death, but it is like and it's an adaptation of another post story called Hop Frog, Hop Frog is the name of the story, Hop Toad

is the name of the character in this movie, but like his revenge against Alfredo for smacking his girl is, yeah, we'll get to his revenge, which is awesome. Yeah, and it's actually like, I think serves the perversion and insanity and like, evilness of the of the codary of, you know, hangers-on to Prince Prospero so well that the female dwarf played by an eight-year-old girl who you don't know is supposed to be an adult female dwarf until she opens her mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. And but before she opens her mouth, she's doing the dance and it cuts to what's his name, Patrick McGee Alfredo. Yeah, Patrick McGee. And he's like looking at her like it with the most disgusting, lustful love you ever seen in your life. And Prince Prosper is like, you're like what you see. Yeah. He's like, oh, I wonder. I wonder how've ever seen in your life. And Prince Prosper was like, you like what you see? He was like, oh, I wonder how she would fare in the bed.

And it's like, what the fuck? What? And she accidentally spills wine on him and he smacks her. And they all laugh because yeah, this is a movie about cruelty and sadism and decadence. Yeah. But then another thing I love is that like all of his courteers and, and, and, you know, like all the clout chasers that are in his castle because they're like,

oh, we're afraid, you know, the story goes like he invites all of the nobles to shelter in his, in his castle, to like, sort of shelter in place and quarantine with him. To avoid. Just ride it out. Yeah, avoid the ravages, you know, like order DoorDash, you know, watch movies. Catch up on some reading, you know,

tell yourself that you're gonna learn how to bake bread, you know, all the things you do. Yes, absolutely. But I love Prince Prospero, he just like has all his guests but all he does is just hate on them and make them act like piggies. He's just like, you're a pig, aren't you? And then they start miming and doing pig noises

and walking around in all fours. So he goes through his guests, and one after the other, he makes them act like a pig, a worm, and a donkey. And I gotta say, podcast mindset. Prince Prospero The first broadcaster because all of his hangers-on and fans are pigs donkeys and worms You're bring like a jackass yeah If you're listening to this right now, I would like you to please

You know mime the behavior of a pig donkey or a worm while you listen to this. Absolutely. Make some pig noises through your nose cancelling headphones, gray like a donkey, or just sort of wiggle around a little bit. Wiggle like a worm. The guy who was supposed to be a worm was doing a pretty bad job, I have to say. He was not moving efficiently, you know. It was a beautiful sequence. And then he tells all his other guests, he's like, you know, and then he tells all his other guests, he's like, you know, entertain me

with your best impressions of animals and the way they rot and, you know, the noises they make. So once again, imagine you're Jane Asher. You've just been given a goosebath. You've just been showed a satanic altar. Now all these rich assholes are having an animal orgy, like a pantomime animal orgy in front of you. A true pan. Yeah, it's a true animal orgy.

It's like it's it's very direct. Yes. It's not like might this be might these people be having a weird satanic orgy is like, oh, they are very direct. Nothing, nothing coy about it. Has to when I was watching this like this week, I was struck by like with all the like the different color rooms and all of the tarot imagery. Joe Dorowski really borrowed a lot from this movie in like the movie Nose and like his sort of like more surrealist films. But like

the look of all of Joe Dorowski's movies, I think is like heavily borrowed from the Korman's Mask of the Red Death. Absolutely. That is a strong I think that is a strong that's a strong influence. Yeah, like, yeah. And it I found that I found that kind of thing much more pleasing in this movie than in Jodorowsky, no offense to that old that old goofball, that old goofball, that old goofy guy.

That old goofy guy. Yeah, I mean, like I was talking about, I feel like like Jodorowsky, like I like him as a person and a character. Yeah. And I like any of his movies. Yeah. Yeah. I like I really like the first 20 to 30 minutes of all of his movies a lot. And then it becomes it's like, OK,

did you? This is again a sidebar. But I actually think that the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life is is Psycho Magic. It's like a documentary. It's like his last thing that he put out. I think it's probably the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life. Anyway, bless him. A endorsement from a movie mindset I'm gonna be mindset of.

I have to see it, I have to watch it. So yeah, like Jane Asher, the comely Christian wench, she's sort of like, it's shown to the dungeons by Prince Prospero where they're gonna make her boyfriend and father fight each other to the death. They keep trying to get her to choose between these guys. And it like keeps being averted in some way.

But he's having fun. He's having fun toying with her. And then we like he shows her the his Falcon collection, which I also love. And the other line was, he says, she suffers the whims of her God patiently until her will is submerged and she learns to serve. And often the appearance of evil is just a lack of understanding. And he like gives her his whole satanic kink spiel about, you know, being a sub for Satan, the Lord of the Lord of the Fallen Angel.

And that's where he says Satan. Right. Like, yes, I was so I remember being like very, very delighted at how direct and early that happens Yeah, yeah, you're not left. You're not left going. Oh, I wonder I wonder what he's up to Satan is a god of truth and facts and reason Satan is like, you know, he's a he's a facts Don't care about your feelings guy. Fact of logic. And then like he's trying to, he's trying to like, cause obviously like he sees a challenge in like, you know,

all of the people that surround him are, yeah, like Satanist cloud chasers and they're easy. Yeah. And they all just want to impress him and act like a donkey for his amusement. But then he sees this like hot virtuous peasant girl and he's just like, Ooh, how fun will it be to corrupt her? And so he wants to, as he says to her, he says,

I want to save your soul to join me in the glories of hell. I will lead you through the cruel light into the velvet darkness. And like, I don't know, at this point, I just be kind of thinking, you know, like, that doesn't sound too bad. It was better than living in that fucking village. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The village sucked. I. It was better than living in that fucking village. I mean, that village sucked. I mean, we were eating mud for dinner every night. There's nothing that you do.

Mud based lifestyle. Yeah. Just stacking sticks up for fun, making little stick dolls that kill each other. Dragging sticks from here to there. It does. It's also it's a great it's it's like what is designed in the movie. The palace is designed. What isn't what did they not spend money on? Well, the mud hut village, like who cared?

Nobody like it. So it almost doesn't even exist. So you go, well, why would I want to be out there? It doesn't even exist. This this is the only place that would I want to be out there? It doesn't even exist. This is the only place that I'm like after the end of the one scene it's in. It literally doesn't exist because they burn it down. And yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nowhere for her really to go.

Yeah. Let's hang out at the castle. She does seem to have a kind of vibe like, well, OK, let's hang out at the castle. Yeah, let's see where this leads us. Am I crazy? No, she definitely does. I said in the beginning that for all of the nobles, they spent all the money on the set. And then Carmen had a key grip, Rob, a Shakespeare company next door.

But for the brother and the lover and the father character, I think they just stole from a panto production of Peter Pan They're both dressed like Peter Pan absolutely the like plastic weapons that they use It's like it's so cool Yeah, so basically like Prince Prospero decides to have a mask You know like a like a costume party for all his friends to, you know, while away the time. But they're gonna have a little entertainment before that.

They're gonna have a feast and then they're gonna make the father and the boyfriend kill each other. And he does that by like, he addresses his guests and he's just like, thank you all for being here. But like, I know some of you are haters and talk shit about me behind my back. And he sort of like, he throws a series of five daggers on the table and then tells the two other guys that one of the daggers is poisoned with like, you know, like a toxin that will kill you within five seconds. And they have to basically trade off cutting their arm back and forth until one of them is dead. And basically it gets to the father and it's the last knife

and he knows he's gonna die and he tries, he attempts to stab Prospero, but he's waiting for him and just runs him through with a sword. That's a great, such a great sequence. All of all this is going on, we have the dwarf character who's like beginning to lay the plans for his revenge on Alfredo, who sort of like, he comes to him and implies heavily that he's like, you know, I'm not satisfied

in my current employment as court dwarf for Prince Prospero, and I'm wondering if there are perhaps gainful opportunities for a minstrel and a dwarf in your employ, and then he's like, yes, but only if you tell me all of Prince Prospero's dirty secrets, and he's like, I'll do you one better. I'll teach you how to act like an ape for this costume party, and we'll have a lot of fun doing it.

Huge improvement. That's like his plan that works. He's like okay why don't you get, he's like I'm going to dress as a cool demon and he's like you know what would be cooler than that if you dress like a big dumb ape. It's the same gorilla costume that they used in trading places. And like the also meanwhile this I would like to talk about also the C or D plot of Vincent Price's former sister slash girlfriend slash something. Oh man, the psychedelic dream sequence,

a lot going on there. The cavalcade of racist caricatures. Yes. Of fear one after the other. Right when you think they're not gonna do another racist caricature. Yeah. Another one of fears.

Think I'm trying another one. So Lady Juliana, who is Prince Prospero's sister slash lover slash lady of the house, wants more than anything to be inducted. She wants to be a bride of Satan. And there's a great scene where she brands herself with an inverted cross to mark herself as one of Lucifer's wives. And then like in sort of a final stage, she sort of like she drinks, she doses herself with like LSD. She drinks some sort of hallucinogenic compound and then had then has this like bizarre psychedelic dream sequence well how should I describe this in her dream

sequence she experiences being sacrificed on an altar by an African Chinese and sort of South Pacific Islander guy and they all sort of and a wizard and just just thrown in for good measure. Just a white wizard. Yeah, yes. So she's like, she dreams of herself on this altar and she's like, ah, no, she's being ravaged one after the other where it's like being stabbed, wink, wink, by a series of racial stereotypes of like witch doctors from across all African, Asian, and Middle Eastern.

Aztec. Aztec, yeah. There's an Aztec guy. So it's like, yeah, it's like a, yeah, it's like, it's a small world after all for human slash sexual sacrifice. They weren't having fun in the 60s. And that's another thing I was thinking of this movie.

Like, I was kind of blown away that this movie was made in 1964. I think it's just about the color and all the satanic decadence. It really made me think that this movie was in the early 70s, but it's like a decade earlier. Yeah, it's really crazy. This is like four years before Night of the Living Dead,

which is crazy in a different way, but this has a lot of like, you know, the, the incredible, you know, a lot of like crazy sequences in this one. Oh, we got to talk about my other, my, one of my other favorite scenes in the movie is when like some, some, some revelers arrive late to the party and they're like outside the castle gates and he's like, Oh, Prince Prospero, let me in please. And then he's just like, no, sorry, asshole. And he makes this guy beg for his life.

And then he offers him his wife. And he goes, please, Prince Prospero, you can have my wife. You can do whatever you will with her. And he goes, I've already had that rather dubious pleasure. Oh, yeah. And then he shoots them both with crossbows. No, he shoots the guy with a crossbow and then throws a dagger to the lady.

And he's like save yourself from the red death. Spare yourself from the red death. Yeah. And it's so crazy that Jane Asher is watching on this whole time and is like, all right, let's see what happens next. See what else this guy has in store. And so Juliana attempts to, for her own reasons, let Jane Asher's character escape.

But you know, the scene where like, they're like, good guard. And it just turns around and it's Vincent Price in like a medieval sort of armor or costume and he's like, I bet you thought you could leave my party. You're wrong. Seize them. Seize them. Seize them. I loved that reveal of him turning around and he's wearing the guard uniform. And he's just like, because you know, he just loves dressing up the character and the the man, Vincent Price.

He's just like any opportunity to put on another costume is like, yes, the character is a scenery chewer, character actor type, like who has a costume and loves loves an oration, loves a like a loves to really rip into a line. And like, so is the actor is perfectly lined up. It's perfectly I just love how evil he is in this movie, because like a little bit later, the surviving like the six remaining peasants from the village, like the boyfriend escapes

after the father is killed by Prince Ross, bro. And he like he goesants from the village, like the boyfriend escapes after the father is killed by Prince Prospero. And he goes back to the village and there's like six people left. And they have like, they've got their cart of dead bodies and they're like, he's like, where's everyone going? And they're like, we're going to beg Prince Prospero to let us inside. And he's like, no, please keep your dignity.

It'll just amuse him. And they're like, I'm worried about my body, not my body not my soul, which is you know, fair enough it's a little peasant show up to beg and like there are like Soldiers on the battlements and then they're like, please please we must beseech Prince Prospero and one of the soldiers goes Yeah, go get him. He'll find this amusing This shit's gonna be so funny The new guy check this out. This is gonna be awesome You're not gonna believe what he does to these fucking peasants

Yeah, then yeah, he totally shits all over them and says enjoy dying and he says Why don't you he says store up nuts like squirrels when he when they say but please we have no food or shelter No, what the craziest thing is that he's like, kill them all except the little girl. Yes. And it's like, oh my God, this guy is so fucking evil. It's so crazy. Yeah.

Oh, this is after, of course, Juliana, the sister, she's married to Satan in the witch doctor racist dream sequence, and then like, her reward for getting out of the dream sequence is that she's killed by a raven. Is it a raven or a falcon? Right. Yeah. Falcon, I think. Falcon. Yeah. Falcon rips her up. And then and then Prospero says like, nothing to worry.

She's just married a friend of mine. And it's just I love it. Don't mourn for her. So then we guess the structure of the movie really is. It's like everything. Every incident sets up a line like that from him. Yes, it's like it's almost like a one like a stand up comedian who does a bunch of insult comic. Yeah. Yeah. He's like Don Rickles. Yeah.

By the way, if there are any Puerto Ricans at this mask, my car is in the back for you to steal later. By the way, and speaking of more racisms in this movie, when the mask actually happens and Jane Asher and Vincent Price show up, Jane Asher is dressed like Jasmine from Aladdin and Vincent Price is dressed like Omar Sharif from Lawrence of Arabia. Once again, the costumes are wild. So the mask happens. from Aladdin and Vincent Price is dressed like Omar Sharif from Lawrence of Arabia. The once again, the costumes are wild.

So the mask happened. Hop Toed at the is like you are you are my ape and I am from deepest Ethiopia. And like he paints himself gold, which I think we can all be very relieved that they went there because like, oh, thank God. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's all there. I was like, oh, thank god. Oh my god. Whew! Thank god.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. So. OK. The Jane Asher character, the cuddly wench, is like, before the mask happens, she, the figure in red appears to her on the battlements.

And just basically, oh no, is it to the brother? Sorry, to the boyfriend? It's to the brother, yeah. It's to the boyfriend. Or the boyfriend. Yeah, the boyfriend. Brother or boyfriend. In this movie, it's really hard to tell, honestly. brother, yeah. It's to the boyfriend. Or the boyfriend. Yeah, the boyfriend. Brother or boyfriend. In this movie, it's really hard to tell, honestly. And then basically the figure in red says, I know your girlfriend's in there, buddy,

a lot of guys' girlfriends in there, but don't worry. Just be cool. Hang out here. Give me like an hour and she'll be out. No one else will, but just give me like an hour. And he's like, oh give me like an hour. And he's like, oh, okay, all right. This guy in red told me it, so.

He seems strangely mythic and ethereal. I'll trust what he has to say. So at the mask, before things really go to shit, we get to see Hop Toad's revenge on Alfredo, which is like, he brings him into the party dressed like an ape, and he has like, oh, he's cracking a whip on him. And then he like, kind of lowers the chandeliers to trap him and basically ties him to the chandeliers, lifts him up and sets him on fire.

It's a man in an ape suit being burned alive to the gales of laughter of the court of perverts, which I thought was a great touch. perverts, which I thought was a great touch. And once again, I got to credit Chris for this because he's been doing all this research on the 17th century. And he said that genuinely back in the day, people were so bored and people were so unfunny that the funniest thing that anyone could imagine were people pretending to be animals.

So that was historically accurate. So when you show up just doing hey, would anyone like to hear my impression of an ape? People would be like, oh my God, yes, regale us with this wonderful japeries. You know what? I'm remembering right now that there is another Poe adaptation. I forgot which one it is, but it stars,

I think, Jane Fonda and either Peter Fonda or Henry Fonda and they play lovers. Father or brother? It's brother. Her and her brother play lovers. But like Jane Fonda is like evil and tries and kills Henry Fonda or Peter Fonda's like beloved pet horse and by burning its stable alive. It was Spirits of the Dead. It was the kind of like, yeah, Spirits of the Dead. It was three different directors.

They each did a post short story. I think Fellini did one. Tarrant Stamp is in one of them. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's Fellini, Louis Maul and Jacques, one of the Jacques, I can't remember. Um, but the seeking derangements shock. Yeah, it's not consul in, but no, the, um, then he becomes a horse and she becomes like obsessed with this horse. And it's like, yeah, it really like, there's a lot of animals,

And it's like, yeah, it really like there's a lot of animals, animal people, you know, confusion in in a lot of Poe short stories, I guess. I don't know. It's like a face swap. Yeah. It's like a little novel. A species swap. So after the sort of the appetizer for this great party is seeing a man in an ape costume be burned alive by a dwarf, which, to be honest, that'd be pretty fun at any party. And Vincent Price is like, if you see Hopto, give him some money for that.

Yeah, for that wonderful diversion. And also, before the party starts, he just starts throwing jewels on the floor. And he's going, rubies and pearls. He's literally doing the Mickey Rourke in Barfly. He's going, rubies and pearls he's literally doing the Mickey Rourke and bar fly he's going rubies for my friends so he has explicitly instructed his guests exactly what they have to wear and the only rule is no one can wear red and then when the party kicks into high

gear he's walking around and sees this figure in red walking around and he's like but wait who's this guy? I told I told everyone you can't wear red. He follows him through the series of colored rooms back to his satanic altar. And there he's confronted with him and thinks that the figure in red is an emissary of Satan come to finally reward him for his his faith and satanic virtue. And he's just like, oh, boy, oh, this is what I've been waiting my whole life.

And then like to Jane Asher, he's like, kneel, kneel in front of him. But the red figure never actually says that he is the devil or a minion of Satan. And then we get the climax of this movie, which actually uses interpretive dance to communicate. It's like a ballet. Yeah, it becomes like this dance sequence.

But the amazing sequence of as the Red Death works its way through the party, he has this flowing red robe and he sort of waves it and it goes over these figures who are dancing and then when the red passes over them, the next shot is all of these men and women and their faces are red and covered in blood. Bleeding out of every pore. Every person in this party who's like dancing and having fun and when they transform into the red death it's like they're not aware of it but they're already dead. It's so cool and like beautiful.

It's beautiful. It's so well staged and it's just so bold. Yeah it's bold and like artful and like beautiful and like it's beautiful. It's so well staged and it's it's it's just so bold. Yeah, it's bold and like artful and like really like breathtaking, a really incredible, like breathtaking sequence. And I really love that, like as there as this is happening, Vincent Price is going through like talking to the masked red beretted figure like being like, yo, Eminence, thank you for doing this. And like talking and like they, no one at the party notices them or that they're talking. And he's just like, he's like, I want you to spare

this my comely wench that I found. And he like go to the battlements and then she like runs away And then he's like your eminence and he's like, why do you keep calling me that? He goes, I have no title. Why do you keep calling me that? He says, Your Excellency and he goes, I have no title. And at this point, this is like my favorite part of the movie because this is when Prince Brasparrow thinks he's like He's saying look Your Excellency I've assembled all of these souls for you to harvest and he's like I can't wait for you to kill all of my annoying

all these annoying satanic cloud chasers and then but the Red Death says to him it's just like oh no like you too and this is it has something you said like about the the Satanism thing where he says each man creates his own god for himself, his own heaven, his own hell. And like, that sounds cool and satanic, but he did not anticipate how literal that actually was. Each man does actively create his own God, but guess what? And this is what I love about the end of the movie. Satanism sounds pretty cool and fun.

Guess what? It's just another gay-ass religion that's fake and not true. Like, it's just another thing that you made up to justify your sadistic perversions. It's just like, surprise, surprise, it's just another lame ass religion. The only God that's real is death. That's the only power in this universe that unites everyone is death. And I love the kind of the rug pull from Vincent Price at the end of the movie where he realizes that it's not Satan coming to reward him.

It is just the same death that comes for Prince and Popper alike. I love him taking off his face, his like mask, and it's also Vincent Price's face, which is like the, I think is the reveal in the short story also is like. Yeah. Oh, cool. And in the short story also is like, Yeah. Oh, cool.

And yeah, him just like being like, oh, you don't see death's face until it comes for you. And then he just like takes off his face and he's like, and I've come for you. And he's like, Vincent Price is like horrifyingly like running from from death, like through these like dancing, slow motion dancing, like bloody dead people. And it's like so cool and like chases him through the like the colored hallway again and into the the final room, which like is like bathed in red after. And it's just like and blood is literally just pouring down his face.

It's like so much more blood than everyone else. It's so by the way, I love the way fake blood looked in this era of movies where it's just like bright red candle wax. Yes. Yes. It's so cool. This this is this is like the this is like the big thing that I got from both these movies, but particularly from this one, which is like a growing feeling is like that word that we're dying, like our that our movies are all dying. And what are they dying from?

I feel that they are dying from like taste, sophistication, subtlety and reality. And also, I would say, especially in Massly Red Death, they're also dying from a lack of color. Can we please have rich, vibrant colors back in movies? Every horror movie now is just like the gray, gray like gunmetal sheen and everything is dark as hell. Whereas everything in this movie is like dramatically over lit.

And if anything, Catherine made a point of when the mask starts and having a party, she's like, I turned down the lights, just the hair, just to get the vibe up a little bit. This party is way too brightly lit. People used to be able to have fun in bright colors, bright, bright, bright colors, bright red blood, though, too. It's like bright red blood like you're saying. Well, it's like gets right to the point.

It's like the point is not what blood looks like. The point is that this is like an explosive, spectacular, like confrontation with death and like and the this evil satanists, like his his undoing, you know, so it should really be very sticky and bright red and so gross and and it feels so much better. It's like, oh, this is what it's all about. This is everything. Yes, this is what it's all about. This is everything. Yes, this is what this is the movie mindset.

Truly, this is the mindset. Theda, we must return with a V to enticing, horny 19 year old guys with Edgar Allen Poe stories about about decadence and God and man. You know, still our target market. This is a Roger Horman movie. This is not like this is not released as like high sophisticated art or anything. It just is in retrospect.

But it's like when when you watch like even in like the 80s, I me and my friends watched this movie called Ski School, which is like one of the stupidest, I love Ski School, which is like one of the stupidest, one of the stupidest movies of all time. But it's literally like so stupid and so like by the numbers 80s, like, you know, it's unclear whether the kids go to the ski school or are instructors at the ski school. It's like that's how unclear the plot and like what's going on is.

But like it's photographed so beautifully and like so so many incredible like outdoor shots of like skiing and like what's going on is, but like it's photographed so beautifully and like so so many incredible like outdoor shots of like skiing and like indoor shots of these like parties that are like lit perfectly. And it's like even like a stupid movie like Ski School is more like so beautiful. Why is it shot so beautifully? Yeah, it's because you need to bring back the mindset. It's the mind. That's why you guys are doing the powerful work here. And so I'm looking it up.

It turns out Nicholas Rogue was also the director of photography on ski school. That would be incredible. I just want to talk about the very last scene of this movie, where it's the the girl, the little girl that Prince Prospero spared after killing across Boeing or alling all the wretched peasants that brought her to the castle gates. And then she is back to the same movie set, Dead Tree on the kind of moors,

and back to the red figure. But the red figure is joined, he's got a whole squad of color guys. The Death Cinematic Universe. Yes. And it's just like, The DCU. It's like seven or

eight figures all in different colors and they're all just sort of joining up after they've, they're, they're knocking off like works done. And then like the figure in black says to the figure in red, I've visited a hundred thousand since we last talked. And it's just like, I don't know, like, I think they all represent like death decay disease, like sort of like the Four Horsemen. But then there's guys in yellow and green, and I'm like, what do they represent? Nausea, upset tummy, diarrhea?

All the things Tums can cure. Well, my friend Brad was jokingly saying, it's really funny that at the end, the Red Death does all this shit, and then the other deaths show up and just upstage him, flex on him by being like, oh, I killed like 100,000 people. How many people? And then like the yellow death even is like, I just killed 10,000 people last night. And the Red Death is like, oh, I spared. He did about 20, 30. Yeah, he's like, I did like 20 or 30, but I spared a peasant, a girl, a dwarf. I don't know if it was her brother or boyfriend.

It's kind of confusing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of weird. But I don't think that, I think like for those other deaths, it's all about the numbers. We got to get the numbers up. But the red death is much like Vincent Price himself or Prospero's character, and this is why they're a perfect match, is that he's a showman.

He's in it for the drama. He's in it for the dramatics and the story. And the color. Yes, rather than just raw numbers. He's just like, oh, you guys. How exquisite are these deaths? Yes, exactly. I mean, I killed like 30 or 50 people, but I did it in an interpretive dance number. So it's better than like the rock slide that you just killed like a few hundred with that.

That's I think that's because of the specific place that the Black Death says that he comes from, I think he might represent... I think they all represent different diseases. Oh, like different types. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's kind of the... But yeah, I do love that the Red Death has a flair for the dramatic. Yeah, yeah. He's like a boutique. He's a boutique. He's the art, the art house death.

But has to do your point when we first started talking about this movie, about the kind of like anti-Christian ethics of this movie or the kind of. But I like it because it is essentially taking the piss out of Satanism. And that like we all just create morality like we're like there is no good or evil. It is kind of just a matter of perspective. But like the only thing that's really real is just death, disease and pestilence. Like that's, that's things you can count on. Everything else are stories that we create to help deal with the existence of like the

color squad that's coming for all of us. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's all just a sentimentalization. Even the evil, the malice, like the all of that perversion, it's all just corny. It's corny. Yeah. Yeah. It's corny. And like it's I love the last shot is so beautiful. Like the the procession. All different colored deaths. Yeah. In like a line. It looks like a durer like woodcut. It's like so beautiful. Yeah, so that is Edgar Allan Poe's The Mask of the Red Death and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend slash The Last Man on Earth and Vincent Price.

I mean, yes. Because, you know, like we got to do some of like like the older movies, you know, like this is like an earlier. This is like a pre Night of the Living Dead, pre Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror. So like you said, like Last Man on Earth is kind of gritty and low budget, but it still has, it's Vincent Price, so it has that theatrical quality to it.

Whereas the Mask of the Red Death is like really creepy and disturbing and has all of these like intensely debauched themes of like sexuality and decadence, but it is of like a different era of horror where horror was more theatrical and less in the gutter, like Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is death and evil, but with splendor and decadence,

rather than just madness and, yeah, like madness and desolation. And for further reading of Vincent Price, I would recommend the original House of Wax, which is amazing. Another colorful, fun time. And also the House on Haunted Hill, which is so good and is actually kind of scary. And the same with the Pit in the Pendulum, which is another good and is actually kind of scary and the same with the pit in the pendulum, which is another Roger Corman one and it has like one of the scariest shots of like 60s Cinema in it and it's like so like fucking like twisted and scary and like I really love that one

and Yeah, there's also like all of the Price-Korman collabs are really fun. They're all fire. I would recommend Tomb of Lygia, which is another one, but it's like it's a horror movie, but it's also it has a real sense of like mournful tragedy and romance to it. That's very good. And then I would also readouble my recommendation for The Pit and The Pendulum. We talked about the scene in Last Man on Earth

where Vincent Price's laugh cries. In The Pit and the Pendulum has maybe my favorite moment of Vincent Price acting, which is probably a five to 10 minute sequence of him waltzing around his dungeon just going, Elizabeth? Elizabeth? Elizabeth? The entire movie of The Pit and the Pendulum is literally an hour and 40 minute transition

of Vincent Price from crying to laughing to maniacally laughing. It's truly like that happens like very slowly over the entire course of the movie until like he's completely deranged at the end and it's like so amazing. And also The Pit in the Pendulum, the Poe B story that you get in that movie is the casque of Amontillado, which is my favorite Poe story. Oh, no, that's that's a pendulum. Oh, it's also they also do a straight adaptation of the cast of Amontillado in Tales of Terror, where Peter Laurie plays the guy who walls Poe up.

Tales of Terror, where Peter Laurie plays the guy who walls Poe up. Yes, he were Peter Laurie plays the drunk who walls up Vincent Price. It's like so good because like when I was first watching it, it's like a collection of like three short shorts, like short film adaptations of like Poe stories. And I had no idea it was the cast of Monte Otto until like until he was literally like, I have a new wine in my basement and it's like truly the two craziest like gay weird voices of like Peter Laurie versus Vincent Price it's like I have a new drink in my basement. Oh really? Why don't you show it to me? It's so crazy. The interaction.

It sounds extraordinary. Yeah, it's so good. It's so amazing. Yeah, Tales of Terror is amazing. All of them are amazing. Yeah, they're all really good. House of Usher is amazing, too. I think Mike Flanagan is remaking it right now.

Boo. Yeah, boo. to I think Mike Flanagan is remaking it right now. So yeah, Mike Flanagan, stop making movies. I'm going to kill you. You're a parody. A parody. Do Stephen King rip off about that island full of people and vampires was boring. Fuck you. All right. So, yeah, that does it for this episode of a goofy scream set. That was a data. Thank you for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me on and for exposing me to Vincent Price and these two great movies. And I'm so excited for the rest to listen to the rest of the series. And everyone check out Nympho Wars. Yes, my N.F.W. Nympho Wars every Wednesday. Long Haul Talker Radio for the flyover country. Truly my favorite podcast. I'm sorry to other podcasts in the world, but it's so funny.

Until next time, everybody, we'll scream you later. Ah! Ah! Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a juice. Delicious things to eat. Popping candy beans. Sparkling drinks such as dandy The chocolate pies and the candy So let's all go to the lobby To get ourselves a treat Let's all go to the lobby To get ourselves a treat of such dreams