The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 gothic horror film directed and produced by Roger Corman, and starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Nigel Green, and Patrick Magee. The screenplay, written by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell, was based upon the 1842 short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and incorporates a subplot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog". Another subplot is drawn from Torture by Hope by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. The story follows a prince who terrorizes a plague-ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers.