The Pit and the Pendulum

Original title: Pit and the Pendulum

1961
Approved
1h 20m

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Vincent Price, John Kerr, and Barbara Steele in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.

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Drama Horror Mystery

In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.

Director
- Roger Corman
Writers
- Richard Matheson
- Edgar Allan Poe
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Roger Corman
Writers
- Richard Matheson
- Edgar Allan Poe
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
To increase the pendulum's sense of deadly menace, director Roger Corman took out every other frame during the editing stage making the blade appear to move twice as fast.

Goofs
None of the torture instruments that appear were used by the Inquisition, and many of them didn't exist during the time the story is set. One of the most clear examples is the iron maiden, which was invented during the 18th century.

Quotes
Don Nicholas Medina: I will tell you where you are. You are about to enter hell, Bartholomew. Hell! The Netherworld. The infernal region. The abode of the damned. The place of torment. Pandemonium. "Abbadon, "Tophet", "Gehenna". "Naraka", the pit! And the pendulum.

Alternate versions
Two shots of a corpse's face in a coffin were cut by the BBFC from the original UK cinema version. All later versions were uncut.

Connections
Edited into Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)

User reviews150

Review

Featured review

7/10

It's The Pits! The Price Is Right In The End, Though!

Boy, If I hadn't read another review beforehand which suggested hanging around for the end of this film, even if one gets bored early on, I might have given up on it. I'm glad I stayed with it. It's true; the last part is terrific.

Once again, Vincent Price, as billed, has the lead and deserves the recognition as he emotes as only he could. The surprise is that Price plays such a wimp in this movie, which is out of character for him in his horror films but then - bang! - his REAL personality comes out. Ole Vinny fooled us all. It's shocking and it's pure Price. You'll love it! Price plays, "Nicholas," a guy with a bad family tree. His father tortured people during the Spanish Inquisition and poor "Nicholas" saw his uncle and mother die, too, in the torture chambers of his father's castle (which is a pretty cool place, by the way)..

John Kerr, a horrible actor in this movie, plays a guy ("Francis") to comes to the castle to find out what happened to his sister who had recently died. Oh yeah, she was married to Nicholas. That guy just has no luck with relatives.

I won't say what happens but involves some neat twists and helps make up for the corny and somewhat-boring dialog of the first hour. Talk about torture, though. The first hour, especially the first 20 minutes, is torture to get through. Then a couple of cool all-blue flashback scenes spiced up things for a few minutes, and then it was snooze time until the last 20 minutes which were great!

That last quarter hour is really a hoot for horror fans, especially the last shot!