Mikey Madison, of ‘Anora’ fame, will have a lot of travel to do starting next year. This is because the filming of period film ‘The Masque Of The Red Death’ will take place in Budapest (Hungary) and Austria, in January 2026 onwards. Charlie Polinger adapted the story from Edgar Allan Poe’s eponymous short story and will helm the film, his sophomore directorial feature.
The story is set in the 14th century. When the deadly virus, the Red Death, hits Prince Prospero’s kingdom, Prospero seals the kingdom to protect the aristocracy, addressing the plague as a peasant disease. His sister, Duchess Margarita, opposes his cruel isolation and is thereby exiled. In the wilderness, she meets Isabel, her long-lost twin who was born of a chambermaid and presumed dead. Margarita eventually succumbs to the Red Death, prompting Isabel and her daughter, Rose, to take shelter within the kingdom’s walls.
Assuming Margarita’s identity, Isabel enters the castle with Rose posing as the latter’s savior. Prospero welcomes his “sister” back, but Isabel soon discovers the truth about Margarita and her exile. She also finds out about the vengeful handmaiden lurking all around her. Isabel even deals with a lecherous man named Franz, whose relationship with Margarita scares her. As she navigates royal politics, she uncovers a web of betrayal and brutality, eventually resulting in Prospero’s dark display of power that forces Franz into a fatal duel disguised as a bear. As family members die around Isabel, she wonders if survival outside the kingdom amidst the plague is better than life within the kingdom.
Before winning the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Ani, a sex worker, in ‘Anora,’ Mikey Madison played a wide range of roles in film and TV. Her feature film performances include Sadie in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,’ Alexandra Floyd in the Netflix crime drama ‘Monster,’ Amber Freeman in the horror movie ‘Scream,’ the sequel to ‘Scream 4,’ Kat in the rom-com ‘It Takes Three,’ and River in the crime drama ‘All Souls.’ On TV, she played Judith Weinstein in the Apple TV+ drama series ‘Lady in the Lake,’ starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram, and Max in the FX show ‘Better Things.’
Charlie Polinger’s previous and debut directorial feature is the Joel Edgerton starrer ‘The Plague,’ a psychological drama that follows a 12-year-old boy named Ben (Everett Blunck), who experiences cruelty at an all-boys water polo camp. The film premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and will be released in December this year.
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