The Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe

09.30.07


Mmm, horrorific. So a hedonistic prince goes into some fortress to escape from the disease called Red Death with a few hundred friends.

Cool, it's just like a zombie outbreak.

Without the zombies. -_-



What's weird is that these survivors partied in lieu of, say, looking for a cure, or doing something generally productive. They partied.

All is well until the clock strikes midnight, and this is when a creepy figure covered entirely in bandages (is this right?) enters the party. The prince is offended by his mockery, tries to kill him, and thus dies without apparent cause. All his friends get angry and try to kill the guy only to discover that there was nothing underneath the bandages. They then all start dying according to the progression of the Red Death.

That figure gave me the creeps. I liked it. I liked it a lot. It's much better than the overt presentation of the supernatural in contemporary western stories involving "science" and whatnot. This story involves mystery. Absolute mystery.

I mean, Red Death - Wtf?