And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.So finished the party to end all parties in The Masque of the Red Death, one of Edgar Allan Poes greatest short stories, this about a cloistered group of elites who thought they could live free from consequence and the world outside their walls. Yet like nature, decay, and all other unwanted realities, the Red Death cannot be thwarted by prince and privilege, fiats and decadence. Its a lesson humanity seems doomed to repeat, so why not do it all again in a big splashy A24 horror movie starring Sydney Sweeney?!News of exactly that came Tuesday afternoon when DeadlineThe Plague. However, it is reported A24 wants the film to shoot later this year and that it will be a wildly revisionist and darkly comedic take on the short story.The words wildly and revisionist leave a lot of leeway about what this film could be, however the union of A24 and current It Girl Sweeney certainly shows promise. It was after all A24s partnership with HBO that made Sweeney a star on Euphoria, which is still expecting a third season. Since then Sweeney has gone on to do awards-nominated work in the likes of The White Lotus and Reality, and has produced her own hits, including another indie horror chiller from last year, Immaculate. It is on the last count that the material shows a lot of potential in 2025. After all, the Gothic horror aesthetic appears to be swinging back into popularity, and there is something incredibly Gothic about Poes original tale.While Edgar Allan Poe lived in 19th century America, his sense of literature was defined by an older sensibility. Hence like so many of his tales, 1842s The Masque of the Red Death is set in the Middle Ages where a proud and arrogant Prince Prospero invites a thousand lighthearted nobles of similar opulence and power into a walled abbey. It is there they intend to outlast the arrival of the Red Death (the bubonic plague in all but name) in style and grandeur. While the serfs are left to die outside, the nobles and their retinue will dine at an elaborate masquerade ball in ornately decorated rooms. Nonetheless, Death himself comes in human form to walk amongst them.The story has been adapted multiple times before, most famously by Roger Corman in a kitschy but amusing Vincent Price movie from 1964. That film took the medieval setting of the short story but not much else. It also added a bit of Satan worship and an overt insinuation that Prosperos shindig was devolving into an orgy.We dont know if the new film will get so lurid, or even if it will be a period piece, albeit the recent success of Robert Eggers pot-committed remake of NosferatuMasque revisionist might tease it will be a modernization (similar to how the story was adapted as just one episode in Mike Flanagans Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix in 2023). However, we think it might mean something a bit more fun such as Prospero now being a princess who invites the most debauched into her castle of frivolities.The greater appeal to the story is how timely it feels nearly 200 years after it was written and about 700 years after it was set. The 21st century just lived through a global pandemic that left millions dead, and yet some of the leaders who fiddled while it worsened are newly rewarded with power as they, in turn, attempt to rewrite history.Despite going through a plague, many still think money, power, and dishonesty can shield themselves from the horrors of the natural world or the suffering of others. They insist theyll just build the wall higher.It is in this vein, Sweeney makes a lot of sense considering she already starred in last years Immaculate, a film that was the first in what turned out to be a series of pro-choice horror movies about men trying to control womens bodies in a post-Roe v. Wade America. Bringing that same pointed and scathing sensibility to Poes already incredibly sardonic tale about a royal who thinks he can buy his (or her) way out of meeting the Grim Reaper couldnt arrive at a better moment.