Thanks to star Mikey Madison (Scream, Anora), we’re now closer to knowing when we can expect A24’s “wildly revisionist and darkly comedic” take on Edgar Allan Poe‘s 1842 gothic horror story The Masque of the Red Death.
The reimagining, written and directed by Charlie Polinger (The Plague), was announced in 2025 and began filming in February 2026, but A24 has kept mum on plot or release details so far. Madison reveals we can look forward to the new Poe-inspired film sometime in 2027, thanks to a new chat with ScreenRant for The Social Reckoning.
“I think next year, definitely. I’m so excited for people to see that. Again, it’s something completely different than I’ve ever done before in terms of this medieval time period, and the tone is beyond anything I have ever read before. I don’t even know if I quite understand it yet, but it’s at times very slapstick and very dramatic and interesting and weird. I play two characters, and it was fun. It was really fun and crazy,” Madison told ScreenRant.
Madison plays twin sisters in a story that sees a mad prince take in the noble class into his castle while a plague devastates the peasantry. The long-lost twin, hidden among the lower class, enters the castle and into a decadent world of orgies, opium, power schemes, revenge, and decapitations. Her comments confirm that it will, indeed, be a medieval period piece.
Léa Seydoux (Dune: Part Two, Crimes of the Future) also stars as a scheming lady-in-waiting who is conniving her way to the top.
As for the tone the actress refers to, The Masque of the Red Death won’t be as somber and serious as Poe’s story. “It’s definitely more in a dark comedy world,” Polinger previously told 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.”
The original Poe short story follows a prince who attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death was originally published in 1842, and the tale was notably brought to the big screen as part of the Corman-Poe Cycle back in 1964. Roger Corman directed the adaptation for American International Pictures, with Vincent Price starring.
