Feb 23 2009
B+ Movie Review: The Pit and the Penulum (1991)
Edgar Allen Poe is undoubtedly one of the best writers ever to come out of the United States. His tales are haunting and creepy, even read by the jaded eyes of 21st century readers. With a few words, Poe managed to evoke senses of loneliness, suspense, horror, revulsion and terror that have echoed throughout the years even unto this very day.
Though for now, I’d like to talk about a particular echo that occured in 1991, The Pit and the Pendulum.
A direct-to-video release, The Pit and The Pendulum was done by Full Moon Pictures, a studio dedicated to making low budget horror movies that didn’t look low budget. Other productions by them include the Trancers sequels, the Puppet Master series (the one about living dolls, not aliens), Dangerous Toys, Subspecies and more recently the tongue and cheek horror movies Evil Bong and Gingerdead Man. The studio’s productions always were slick and disturbing, made with an eye towards a very particular, very twisted audience.
The story of The Pit and the Pendulum is very loosely based on Poe’s short story of the same name. It pads the setting a tad as, well, the original takes place entirely in one room. In this telling we meet a baker, Antonio and his wife, Maria who run afoul of the Inquisition in 1492. Maria is accused of witchcraft and much worse, comes to the attentions of the sadistic head of the Inquisition, Torquemada (played by Lance Henriksen, more on that in a moment). Antonio attempts to free his beloved wife and in the process becomes imprisoned himself. Torquemada decides to try a new torture toy out on the man, and that’s where the title pit and pendulum come into play.
The villain in this piece, Torquemada, was a part originally offered to Peter O’Toole, who turned it down. Lance Henriksen was at that time offered the role of Torquemada’s torturer (not the the guy who tortured for him, but applied torture to him). Henriksen turned down his role also, but said that if the lead nasty became available, he was ready to don robe and tonsure to do it. Eventually he got the part.
At a convention in 2008, Henriksen said that he got into the role by imagining how Torquemada experienced the world: walking barefoot along cold stone castle floors and being able to detect the presence of a woman by scent. He immersed himself in the character, bringing depth to what could have been a very one-dimensional character. It’s his passionate, fanatical performance that brings this movie alive. You have little choice but to hate Torquemada and root for Antonio and Maria’s reunion, complete with the triumph of compassion and justice over fear and blind adherence to bad rules.
While as I’ve described it here, this movie could have easily been a drama, rest assured that it’s a horror flick through and through. The tortured victims of Torquemada’s Inquisition are pictured in graphic, sometimes over the top detail. This movie has people being burned at the stake, flogged, crucified and choked to death. It even has an exploding witch.
Yeah, you read that right. An exploding witch.
While not the feel good hit of the year, The Pit and the Penulum are well worth a horror fans time, even seventeen years after it’s release. It’s a film that was taken seriously by those involved and that never spilled over into camp or absurdity, working with it’s gross and graphic elements to produce an engaging, shocking and chilling piece. It’s got a B+ from me and if Edgar Allen Poe were alive today, I’d say he’d probably approve.
Well, right after he asked “Where are my royalties?” and screamed “Get me out of this casket!”.
