Masque of the Red Death (1991)

Many a movie has trivialized the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, but few have dipped as low as Masque of the Red Death, a theatrically unreleased quickie, which updates and distorts Poe's gothic study in dread and leaves it looking like a standard slasher flick. The cast is led by Stallone — Frank, of course — and Brenda Vaccaro, who play guests at a lavish costume party in a Bavarian castle. One by one, revelers are murdered by a red-masked avenger according to their line of work: A hack journalist is given a ''hatchet job,'' a costume designer is literally sewn to death. This is the kind of junk that usually shows up on late-night cable. But at any hour, it's a waste of time. D