Journal of the Plague Year Day One

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964): adapted by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell from stories by Edgar Allan Poe, including "Hop Frog" and "The Masque of the Red Death"; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Prince Prospero), Hazel Court (Juliana), Jane Asher (Francesca), and Skip Martin (Hop Toad): 

 "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." - Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death."

Low-budget horror impresario Roger Corman got more money than he ever had before for this loose adaptation of a couple of Edgar Allan Poe stories. Further aided by British film credits and leftover sets from Becket, Corman made his horror masterpiece. It certainly didn't hurt that the great cameraman and later director Nicholas Roeg was cameraman for the movie.

Above all, the movie looks great. The set design and  costumes are impressively bright, fanciful, and intermittently bleak when we visit the blasted heaths of the medieval Spanish countryside. 

Set some time during the Middle Ages in Catalan, The Masque of the Red Death focuses on the sinister, Satan-worshiping local lord of the manor, Prince Prospero. The plague of the Red Death has fallen upon the countryside. So Prospero retreats to his castle with his favoured nobles and entertainers. And with a pure and virtuous peasant girl he has kidnapped, along with her lover and her father. 

Prospero derives entertainment from the debasement and murder of those around him. The virtuous peasant girl (played solidly by Hazel Court) is someone to 'break.' But her faith in God impresses him, in part because of how seemingly misplaced that faith is in the plague and poverty and violence ravaged country side.

And so begins the Masque of the Red Death, the worst costume ball ever, at least from a survival standpoint. The Red Death isn't simply a disease -- it's a being. And it has promised deliverance to the peasant girl and doom for Prince Prospero and his guests. Prospero has faith that Satan will protect him. We'll see how that goes.

The Masque of the Red Death is a great and poignant spectacle, capped with a couple of show-stopping scenes. Back to back. I guess the second scene would have to be a show-stop-maintaining scene, as the show is already stopped. Vincent Price is magnificent as Prospero, a truly awful being with a certain bleak and oily charm. Skip Martin is also good as Poe's vengeful jester-dwarf Hop Toad. Highly recommended.

Contagion (2011)

Contagion (2011): written by Scott Z. Burns; directed by Steven Soderbergh; starring about a million people: A superior modern outbreak story that spares us people chasing a monkey around. Instead, director Soderbergh and writer Burns show us the complete spectrum of human crisis response, from riots to scientists working away desperately in labs and on the ground.

A mutated flu strain erupts in Hong Kong and soon spreads by airline to America and other places. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mobilize, but they're in a time crunch: the new virus has a high kill rate. And it may already be mutating.

The movie follows the outbreak on various fronts, from the personal front of Matt Damon and his daughter to the professional front of scientists Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Jennifer Ehle. Marion Cottilard leads the WHO in the field. Eliot Gould strives to map the virus at his private laboratory. Jude Law tries to make money as a muck-raking blogger who starts by questioning authority and ends by trying to make money off fake cures while also convincing the gullible to avoid any official cures. 

Contagion hurtles along, paying more attention to science and medicine than almost any movie I can remember. The scientists may be fallible, but Contagion stresses that they're also the only hope in a crisis such as this. The final revelation of the virus' origin point takes a final jab at the corporate world and, I suppose, factory farming. In any case, one of a handful of Soderbergh's best movies. Highly recommended.

Hidden (2015)

Hidden (2015): written and directed by The Duffer Brothers; starring Alexander Skarsgard (Ray), Andrea Riseborough (Claire), and Emily Alyn Lind (Zoe): Parents Ray and Claire and tennish daughter Zoe hide in an old bomb shelter. They've been there for 300 days and counting. Creatures they've dubbed "Breathers" hunt for them on the surface. Underground, the food is running out.

It's a simple set-up for a fairly straightforward film. The performances by all three actors are solid and low-key, as is the direction. Flashbacks fill us in on what brought the family to the shelter. 

Running barely 80 minutes, Hidden is an adequate survival thriller which may or may not have a few twists along the way. Though the biggest enemies for much of the movie are a stubborn water pump and a rat that's gotten into the food supply. A talking doll carried around by Zoe plays the role of Chekov's Gun. Lightly recommended.