The Masque of the Red Death in popular culture

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Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story "The Masque of the Red Death" has been depicted and referenced numerous times in popular culture.

Literature

  • In The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, Erik appears at the masquerade dressed as the Red Death.
  • Jack London's novella The Scarlet Plague (1912) was inspired in part by Poe's story.[1] In the book, much of humanity has been wiped out by a disease sometimes referred to as "Red Death".
  • Stephen King's novel The Shining contains several allusions to the story. For example, the line "and the red death held sway over all" seems to reference the final line of Poe's story. In "Dark Tower" series' sixth novel, Song of Susannah, Mia mentions an epidemic called the "Red Death" that ravaged the city of Fedic; Susannah makes the connection to Poe's short story.[2]
  • In Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, this story is referenced in a speech given at a socialite's party by an elderly British poet and house guest, rumored to be afflicted with AIDS.
  • In the 374th issue of the comic book series "
    Journey Into Mystery
    " this story is quoted and referenced while Thor is burning bodies of dead mutants as a way to honor them after learning that he has been banished from Hel and could never die.
  • In Neil Gaiman's 1996 novel Neverwhere, a minor character briefly mentions the story "The Masque of the Red Death" when describing a fancy event at a museum.
  • Death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels references the story a couple of times; in Maskerade (which pastiches Phantom of the Opera, see below), he wears a Red Death costume at the book's climax. In The Light Fantastic, Death consoles himself after being summoned from an enjoyable party, noting that it was going to go downhill at midnight – as that is when everyone would have expected him to take his mask off.
  • The Chuck Palahniuk novel Haunted begins with a quote from "The Masque of the Red Death". Also, several of the rooms are colored with themes that reflect the story.
  • In the Dan Simmons novel The Terror, an elaborate Carnivale and masque is staged outdoors by the crew of two ice-locked ships. The crew builds a series of multi-colored compartments for the event out on the ice using the ships' rigging and different colored paints. A crew member thinks of this idea from incompletely remembering a story by Poe he read in a magazine.
  • The last chapter of Valerio Evangelisti's novel Il corpo e il sangue di Eymerich (The Body and the Blood of Eymerich) shares the story's title and retells its plot almost literally in the context of the book.
  • The second installment of the limited comic series Rocket Raccoon, "The Masque of the Red Breath", featured an insidious red cloud, the Red Breath, which attacked a masquerade and "erased" its victims from existence.
  • In DC Comics, an alternate version of Bruce Wayne from a dark parallel universe becomes an anti-hero known as the Red Death. He wears a red suit with a stylized skull-like mask. After losing members of his family, he steals the powers of the Speed Force from the Flash by absorbing his essence. Using his new found super speed, the Red Death becomes a ruthless vigilante, murdering his rogues gallery and conquering his world. He is later recruited by The Batman Who Laughs to join the Dark Knights, other alternate evil versions of Bruce Wayne.[3]
  • Ray Bradbury's "Usher Two," one of the stories in The Martian Chronicles, is a blatant homage to Poe, and contains a multitude of references and plot points taken from many of Poe's works, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Masque of the Red Death," among others.
  • White Wolf's trilogy Masquerade of the Red Death is named and has some elements based on this story.
  • Wendy Pini
    .
  • In
    CIA formulates a long-term plan to destabilize Communism in the Soviet Union and hasten the end of the Cold War
    , codenamed "Masque of the Red Death".
  • Cory Doctorow's 2019 novella collection Radicalized includes a story titled "Masque of the Red Death". Doctorow's story, like Poe's, follows a group of wealthy people attempting to survive a cataclysm by sealing themselves away in an isolated fortress, with disastrous results.

Stage and screen

  • A horror film called The Masque of the Red Death was shot in 1964 by Roger Corman. It incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog." The film stars Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher and Patrick Magee. The film had a 1989 remake starring Adrian Paul.
  • In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, Erik, the Phantom, attends a ball dressed as the Red Death with the inscription "Je suis la Mort Rouge qui passe!" ("I am the Red Death that passes") embroidered on his cloak in gold. The Red Death costume shows up in both the 1925 version, 1986 musical and 2004 film of the same name, though the 1925 movie and stage production are somewhat more accurate regarding his appearance, as he bears a large feathered hat and lengthy cloak as described in the novel (although both stage and screen costume bear skull masks). Neither appearance, however, shows the inscription. The 1987 animated film also shows the Red Death scene. In the 1989 film, starring Robert Englund, Erik is also dressed as the Red Death. On the cover of Sam Siciliano's The Angel of the Opera, Erik is dressed as the Red Death.
The Phantom of the Opera dressed as the Red Death in the 1925 film.

Music

Video games

  • The 1994 computer game Under a Killing Moon featured interludes in which text slides containing lines of The Masque of the Red Death were narrated by James Earl Jones.
  • The 1995 computer game The Dark Eye featured an abstract slide-show segment accompanying a reading of "The Masque of the Red Death" performed by William S. Burroughs.
  • The 2012 video game Dishonored includes the mission Lady Boyle's Last Party, which is loosely based on The Masque of the Red Death.
  • The 2012 video game Crusader Kings II features an event referencing the story when you attempt to seclude your court from the Black Death.
  • The 2014 video game Destiny features a weapon called The Red Death.
  • The 2017 video game Persona 5 features a song titled "Beneath the Mask", containing the lyrics "I'm a shapeshifter, at Poe's masquerade" and "just a cage of bones, there's nothing inside", a reference to the story.
  • Most games in the Persona series have the player visit a place called the "Velvet Room", another reference to the story.
  • In one of the comics from the video game
    Reaper
    wears the Red Death costume.
  • The 2020 computer game The Red Death featured the red death and shares the name in its title.[12]
  • The 2021 Virtual reality game: "I Expect You To Die 2" Features a book in the two levels "Eaves Drop" and "Jet Set" that references the title of the book. There are also posters of the play in the mission "Stage Fright".
  • The 2021 video game Vampire Survivors features an unlockable character' The Mask of The Red Death' resembling a grim reaper with a red cloak and scythe. The character description is 'A blasphemous mockery'.

Other media

  • In 1994 a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game campaign setting was published under the name Masque of the Red Death as an offshoot of Ravenloft taking place on a version of earth in the year 1890 with many elements from gothic fiction.
  • The 1996 storyline Contagion that ran across Batman comics features a biological weapon unleashed in Gotham City, in response the cities wealthy citizens seal themselves in an apartment tower only to find they are trapped inside with the plague, paralleling Poe's story.
  • The Paizo Pathfinder Adventure Path Curse of the Crimson Throne's second module, Seven Days to the Grave features a disease called blood veil that shares many features with the Red Death, most notably the sweating of blood, furthermore, later in the same module, there is a plot of infecting nobles that had isolated themselves inside a manor, that seems heavily inspired on the plot of Masque of the Red Death.
  • The October 20, 2008 issue of The New Yorker featured a Red Death character looming over stock traders in the New York Stock Exchange.
  • The
    Warhammer Fantasy Battle
    setting has the story of the Masque of the Red Death occurring in the city of Mousillon in Bretonnia.
  • In the series Beetlejuice, the fourth-season episode "Poe Pourri" has Beetlejuice encountering "The Mask of Dead Breath" a giant floating face mask who coughs upon Beetlejuice, but instead of red death he just suffers a terrible cold.
  • The 2013 Doctor Who episode The Crimson Horror features a chemical substance which seems to produce the same effects within humans as that of the actual disease, while it was in fact produced by an alien parasite within the episode.
  • In 2018, IDW Games released a board game titled "Masque of the Red Death" designed by Adam Wyse with art by Gris Grimsley based on Poe's story. In the game players are guests at the masquerade trying to discover which rooms the Red Death will visit during the midnight hour, and trying to avoid the Red Death when it arrives.[13]
  • A Los Angeles Times op-ed noted that the White House COVID-19 outbreak, which was a large gathering at the White House for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, bears similarities to the plot of "The Masque of the Red Death".[14]
  • The 2022 Father Brown (2013 TV series) episode "The Red Death" features a death threat with the phrase "The Red Death is coming", a masquerade ball, and the murder of the Minister of Defence by a figure wearing a red skull mask.
  • In 2023, Four Horsemen Studios released a Masque of the Red Death action figure through their Figura Obscura line.

References

  1. ^ Johnson, Suzanne (2013-09-09). "A Read of the Dark Tower: Constant Reader Tackles Song of Susannah, 10th Stanza, "Susannah-Mio, Divided Girl of Mine," Sections 10-19". Tor.com. Macmillan. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  2. ^ Batman: The Red Death #1
  3. ^ "Classic Monsters References in Burton's Batman". www.batman-online.com.
  4. ^ Jordan Raup, "Unfilmed Akira Kurosawa script the mask of the black death will be produced in china" /[1]
  5. ^ "Party At Ground Zero - Music Video Database". Retrieved 2008-06-01.
  6. ^ National Public Radio: "NPR Quarterly Edition Fall 1997". NPR Marketing, Vol. III, No. IV
  7. ^ "Amazon.com: The Masque of the Red Death" Amazon.com. Accessed July 17, 2008.
  8. ^ Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna da (April 18, 2013). "Nimbly Chasing That Winged Target". The New York Times. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  9. ^ Levere, Jane (April 17, 2013). "New York Philharmonic To Perform All-American Program With Joshua Bell And Christopher Rouse Premiere". Forbes. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  10. ^ News, BWW. "From THE WOODSMAN To New Music Inspired By Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart". BWW News Desk. broadwayworld.com. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  11. ^ "Game Jolt - Games for the love of it".
  12. ^ "Masque of the Red Death". BoardGameGeek.
  13. ^ David L. Ulin (October 3, 2020). "A tell-tale Edgar Allan Poe story for Trumpian times". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-10-04.