Roger Corman and Daniel Haller were able to make this film look more opulent than earlier productions by using the sets left from Becket.
Roger Corman had originally wanted this to be his second "Poe" picture following the success of House of Usher. He passed it over because he felt that certain plot elements were too close to Ingmar Bergman's recent The Seventh Seal.
Roger Corman shot this film in England to take advantage of British tax laws. By making this a British production with a British crew, the production got a government subsidy.
Roger Corman spent five weeks shooting this film, from November 18-December 1963. The previous "Poe" features had a three-week shooting schedule.
Jane Asher asked Roger Corman if a friend could visit the set and join them for lunch. She explained that her friend was a musician who was about to about to do his first gig in London that night. At the end of lunch, Corman wished him good luck with his concert. Roger Corman had never heard of Paul McCartney until he read of the concert's success in the next day's newspapers.
Average Shot Length = ~7.4 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~7.5 seconds.
Hop Toad's wife, Esmeralda, was played by Verina Greenlaw who was only a child at the time. Her dialog was looped by an adult actress.
Hop-Toad and Esmeralda were drawn from Poe's short story "Hop-Frog". That story was inspired by an actual incident in 1393, where French King Charles VI and 5 of his lords dressed and chained themselves as "wild men" at a masquerade, and their costumes caught fire from a stray spark. 4 of the lords died, and the incident became known as the Bal de Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men).
In an in-depth interview in the cult Cinema Retro magazine (Issue #18), Corman nominated The Masque of the Red Death alongside _The Intruder_ and X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes as his personal favorites among his own films.
Over two miles of corridors were built in sections spreading over three sound-stages for Jane Asher to run through while she was held captive.
The last words spoken in this film (by the Red Death character) are "sic transit gloria mundi" which translates into English as "thus goes the glory of the world".
This was Roger Corman's first film shot in England.
This was the final movie shown on New York's WNEW (now WNYW) Channel 5's "Drive-In Movie" program, dated 2 July, 1988.