Memento Mori and The Masque of the Red Death

Father David Subu joins host Cindy Collins Smith to read and discuss Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” The conversation, of course, makes side trips into Roger Corman’s cinematic fever-dream adaptation, Ingmar Bergman’s danse macabre, Bill and Ted’s Battleship game with Death, and George Romero’s zombies—with the reading culminating in Fr. David’s diabolical Vincent Price cackle. More seriously, they consider what memento mori asks of us: to live mindfully rather than recklessly, knowing that our lives can end in a moment. One note: Cindy thought Roger Corman may have gotten the second-hand sets from Hammer Studios. Uh, actually… he got them from the A-list, Oscar-winning production Becket.