I'm really loving this series of film novelisations that Bear Manor Media are republishing - like their one on The Raven this comes with a sort of DVD extras equivalent, an interview with Roger Corman on the making of the film, which I found very interesting: he says he wanted to make Masque from the beginning but was worried about similarities with The Seventh Seal. Hence, it was not made until towards the end of the cycle - however this did mean it could be shot in England with greater production value, and also Corman's skills as a director were reaching its peak.
Corman had a deal of trouble getting a script he was happy with and numerous writers worked on Masque - end credit goes to Charles Beaumont and William Campbell. Truth be told, the script is a bit messy with a lot of repetition and sketchy characters: Gino and his father are just bland hot headed idiots (though supposed to be the hero), Francesca is just a hot girl who is kidnapped, Gino escapes and is recaptured, there's a lot of tap dancing dramatically until the deux ex machina of the red-clad visitor. It's not as well structured as say Richard Matheson's Poe scripts.
However, when it's good it's excellent, with some captivating atmosphere, and a stunningly good line up of bad characters: satanist Prospero, jealous Juliana, determined to be married to Satan, Hop Toad the dwarf, Alfredo the duke. It's a bleak world of death, injustice, pain, sex, religious devotion and superstition. It's a flawed script but the novelisation captures the atmosphere and is consistently interesting.
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