‘The Masque of the Red Death’ Director Teases A24’s Giallo-Inspired Edgar Allan Poe Dark Comedy [Exclusive]

With The Plague on the cusp of release, writer-director Charlie Polinger is gearing up for his sophomore film: an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe‘s The Masque of the Red Death.

“It’s definitely more in a dark comedy world,” Polinger tells Bloody Disgusting. “It has a much more maximalist tone but explores some similar things [as The Plague] on a very basic level, like group dynamics within a claustrophobic space.”

Polinger continues, “Some of the same people from Plague are coming back to work on it, so I’m really excited about that. [Cinematographer] Steven Breckon’s shooting it, and [composer] Johan Lenox is doing the score. I’m currently in Budapest prepping it.”

He cites “some really out-there period stuff and giallo films and Ken Russell films and all kinds of stuff like that” as influences on the project.

“I feel like, with every new movie that I’m experiencing, there’s a whole new set of things you have to learn from scratch to make sense of that movie,” says Polinger. “But that’s the fun of it, trying to forge your way through that.”

A24 and Picturestart are producing the revisionist take on Poe’s 1842 on gothic horror short story about the inevitability of death.

Academy Award winner Mikey Madison (Anora, Scream 2022) is attached to star in a dual role as twin sisters.

In the film, a noblewoman’s exile leads her twin to assume her identity in a plague-sealed medieval kingdom. As she navigates deadly court intrigue with her daughter, she questions whether safety behind castle walls is worth the price of brutality.

The Plague opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 24 before expanding nationwide on January 2.