Review: The Pit and the Pendulum

Set in Spain in the 1500s, John Kerr goes to the coastal castle of his dead sister to pay respects to her widow, played by Vincent Price. He can’t seem to get a straight answer out of the man as to how his sister died, though looking at Price’s tortured face it’s clear that something truly horrific befell her. The more time Kerr spends in the castle, the more unhinged Price seems to get. It appears that he’s haunted by childhood memories watching his mother (Barbara Steele) and uncle tortured with the giant, swinging pendulum by his own father, a member of The Spanish Inquisition. Luana Anders plays Price’s loyal sister.

 

Popular 1961 entry into the Edgar Allen Poe cycle of films from AIP and director Roger Corman (“Fall of the House of Usher”), getting a big boost from Vincent Price’s go-for-broke performance. I am more partial to the slightly more dour and restrained “Tomb of Ligeia”, but there’s lots to like here. Well-shot by Floyd Crosby (“Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Raven”, “The Comedy of Terrors”) and with typically excellent set design for the Corman-Poe-Price cycle. Corman always knew how to stretch a dollar, with only some of the matte paintings disappointing. I love the stormy exteriors and crashing waves, adding doomy and gloomy atmosphere, also reflective of the state of mind of some of the characters perhaps. The house itself is seemingly haunted, containing ghosts of the past that drive the characters insane. The torture chamber looks wonderfully decrepit and the pendulum is awesome to behold.

 

It’s an immediately worried-looking Vincent Price who towers over all here as a man who has seen some shit and is clearly not psychologically well, and probably not to be trusted. It’s a terrific display of horror and psychological torture, a man haunted by his father’s past misdeeds and his own likely descent into similar madness. Price could play Machiavellian evil with the best of them, but I think tortured souls driven mad are really Price’s trump card as an actor and this is one of his best performances. The thing with Price is that yes, he’s hammy as hell but it’s actually entirely appropriate for the material. So he’s not just doing empty overacting like he did in the 1962 remake of “The Tower of London”. Although underused, Barbara Steele is gorgeous and bewitching as a woman who too was apparently driven mad living in the castle full of torture devices. When given a chance, she acquits herself quite well in surroundings quite similar to the Italian horror films she was making during the period, including for Mario Bava. I also must credit Les Baxter (“The Raven”, “Cry of the Banshee”) for what might be the only genuinely good score of his in the cycle. That’s chiefly because it is used sparingly and very little of that annoying, cheapo woodwind sound that I loathe. On the downside, the pacing is a bit too slow, though once it gets going it really takes off. Meanwhile, some of the supporting cast are a bit stiff. Luana Anders in particular is having an off day.

 

A damn good Poe retelling, choosing a favourite of the Corman-Poe-Price cycle is difficult because they share so many similarities that it’s somewhat arbitrary. However, with a few dud supporting turns, this one probably ranks behind “Tomb of Ligeia” and “Fall of the House of Usher”. That still puts it ahead of the more Lovecraftian “The Haunted Palace” (we won’t talk about the Price-less “The Premature Burial”) and possibly even “The Masque of the Red Death”. Lots of campy, Gothic fun with a top Vincent Price performance. Very, very loosely based on the Poe short story, the screenplay is by Richard Matheson (“The Incredible Shrinking Man”, “Fall of the House of Usher”, “Tales of Terror”, “The Comedy of Terrors”), who invented most of the plot himself.

 

Rating: B-