The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961 horror film directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, and Luana Anders in Panavision and Pathécolor. Richard Matheson’s script was partially based on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 short story of the same name.
The novel is set in sixteenth-century Spain, and it follows a young Englishman as he investigates his sister’s tragic death at a forbidding fortress. During the film’s climax sequence, the young guy is tied to the titular torture device by his insane brother-in-law after a series of horrifying revelations, seemingly ghostly appearances, and violent deaths.
The film was the second in American International Pictures’ popular series of Poe-based films, the first being Roger Corman’s House of Usher from the previous year. Widescreen cinematography by Floyd Crosby sets designed by art director Daniel Haller, and a cinematic score composed by Les Baxter are all featured in the picture, which is similar to House.
Pit’s critical and box-office success inspired AIP and Corman to adapt other Poe stories for six further pictures, five of which starred Prince. With the release of The Tomb of Ligeia in 1965, the series came to an end.
The film’s considerable effect on countless future Italian thrillers, from Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body (1963) to Dario Argento’s Deep Red, has been highlighted by both cinema critic Tim Lucas and writer Ernesto Gastaldi (1975). One of Pit’s key shock sequences has been dubbed ‘one of the most crucial moments in post-1960 horror movies’ by Stephen King.
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