Stars: Oliver Reed, Jeffrey Combs, Lance Henriksen, Rona De Ricci, Jonathan Fuller, Tom Towles, Frances Bay, Steven Lee, William Norris

Director: Stuart Gordon

Summary: A Grand Inquisitor leads a religious campaign of torture and violence. A woman becomes caught up in the madness when he becomes smitten by her beauty.

Lance Henriksen plays Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Spanish Inquisition, which is in full swing when THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM begins. The heretic-burning fires of the Auto da fe are raging all across Spain, the people live in fear, and no one dares speak a word against Torquemada and the Inquisition. But when a baker's wife tries to stop a woman from being burned alive, she is arrested and brought before the evil Torquemada. The mad dictator accuses her of being a witch and commands that she be put on trial, tortured into a confession, and then burned at the stake. The beautiful woman can only hope that her husband will rescue her before she is killed. Director Stuart Gordon offers up another smart, ambitious horror film in THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, which is loosely based on the classic Edgar Allan Poe story. Resisting obvious horror film tropes, Gordon laces his film with a more internal brand of horror, focusing on the tortures of the soul and the evil that men do to themselves as well as others. Henriksen is chilling as the half-crazed Torquemada, creating a character who has been twisted by the conflicting forces of devotion to God, earthly lust, and ambitions of power. Excellent acting, a well-crafted script, and good production design make THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM a unique horror film, typical of Gordon's work.

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The Fall of the House of Usher- Vincent Price brings a theatrical flourish to the role of Roderick Usher, a brooding nobleman haunted by the dry rot of madness in his family tree. This being an Edgar Allen Poe story, there's a history of family madness and melancholia, a premature burial and a sense of doom hanging over the gloomy, crumbling mansion. Roger Corman sold stingy AIP pictures on the concept by claiming "The house is the monster"--or so goes the oft-told story. True or not, Corman (with the help of his brilliant art director Daniel Haller and legendary cinematographer Floyd Crosby) creates an exaggerated sense of isolation and claustrophobia with the sunless forest and funereal fog that holds the house and its inhabitants prisoner in a land of the dead. It doesn't quite look real (some of the effects are downright phoney, notably the apocalyptic climax), and none of the co-stars can hold a candle to Price's elegant, haunted performance (often speaking in no more than a stage whisper), but it's a triumph of expressionism on a budget. Shot in rich, vivid colour and CinemaScope, from a literate script by genre master Richard Matheson, this is stylish Gothic horror in a melancholy key. It was such a success that Corman reunited his core group of collaborators for the follow-up The Pit and the Pendulumthe very next year. Thus Corman's "Poe Cycle" was born. --Sean Axmaker, amazon.com

The Masque of the Red Deathis Roger Corman's, and most people's, choice as the best of the Edgar Allan Poe pictures. Masque offers the expected creepy atmosphere and violence against peasants, plus metaphysical ponderings and pointed satanic cruelty. (Corman was operating as much under the influence of Ingmar Bergman as of Edgar Allan Poe.) Nicolas Roeg's colour cinematography and Daniel Haller's elaborate production design would be stellar in any Hollywood A-movie; the mono-coloured rooms of the prince's castle are a startling effect. Vincent Price is in fine fettle as Prince Prospero, the devil-worshipping sadist who throws lavish parties while the countryside is ravaged by the plague. --Robert Horton, amazon.com

The Pit and the Pendulum- The Fall of the House of Usher's success in 1960 spurred American International Pictures to quickly launch another production based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. While producer-director Roger Corman had hoped to next adapt "The Masque of the Red Death" (which wasn't produced until 1964), Pit and the Pendulum(the on-screen title) became the second in AIP's long-running Poe series. Set in post-Inquisition Spain, the film stars John Kerr as a young Englishman who travels to the seaside castle of his brother-in-law (Vincent Price) to uncover the circumstances behind the death of his sister (a dubbed Barbara Steele). Price is tormented by memories of his mother's premature burial by his inquisitor father (also Price) and fears that this sadistic legacy has contributed to Steele's demise. Furthermore, he believes that Steele was also buried alive--a belief compounded by the mysterious destruction of her room, and the sound of her harpsichord playing in the night...

Structured almost identically to Usher, Richard Matheson's script fleshes out the brief original text with a fast-paced and twist-filled plot that never loses sight of the psychological themes of Poe's work. It also provides Price with the richest of his many AIP/Poe roles, a sympathetic, deeply emotional man who is unhinged by the sins of his father. Corman's direction is equally driven and fluid, and features some impressive quasi-psychedelic visuals in the tense climax. Also noteworthy is art director's Daniel Haller's impressive design of the title set piece. --Paul Gaita, amazon.com

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1990
Release Date:	September 1, 2003
Runtime:	93 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P P A 1469
Label:	Addictive Films
Keywords:	General, Pit, Pendulum, Horror, Occult, Sci, Fi, Inquisitor
Genre:	Horror/Occult