Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Vincent Price plays Nicholas Medina, a Spanish nobleman who has recently lost his wife.  When her brother shows up, suspicious at his sister’s death, to get to the bottom of why such a young and healthy woman would suddenly die things get interesting.  With Nicholas, Francis (the brother), Doctor Leon, and Nicholas’ sister Catherine all on hand to witness it, the spirit of the dead wife seems to have come back to haunt Nicholas.  After much debate the group agrees to open the woman’s crypt, to convince Nicholas that she is dead and they didn’t bury her alive (which is another of his fears).  When they open the crypt they discover that she is dead, but that they might have goofed on the being dead before they buried her bit.  If this weren’t twisted enough we discover the wife isn’t actually dead, but conspiring with the good Doctor to drive her husband crazy so they can be together.  But Nicholas isn’t all that sane to begin with and while they are successful in driving him over the edge they get more than they bargained for. 

This is a pretty damn good movie.  Now screenwriter Richard Matheson has to work pretty hard to get a feature length film out of a very short story.  He does this by combining bits from other Poe works to create a narrative that isn’t too bad.  Still at times the movie does get slow and feels like it is searching for something, anything to keep the action going.  I also wasn’t terribly fond of the heavy use of flashbacks to fill in the missing plot points.  But even when the story slows we are provided with an excellent cast that keeps things lively and interesting.  Vincent Price is on top of his game, giving an excellent performance as Nicholas Medina, as well as his father in the flashbacks.  Also looking beautiful and holding her own on screen is the fabulous Barbara Steele.  She is well cast as the scheming wife trying to drive poor Nicholas insane.  The rest of the cast is filled with good working actors giving decent performances.

I’m a huge fan of Roger Corman, but even I wouldn’t consider him a great director.  His gift was getting the right cast, screenwriters, technical people, and bringing in the project quickly and on budget.  The best bits of this movie have to be the cast and story, as I’ve already mentioned.  Technically this is a professional looking movie, but nothing innovative or special about it.  I did have an issue with how they light and shot the flashback scenes, with them being red and barely in focus.  It sort of reminded me how Corman would later shoot his drug “scenes”, which have also always bugged me.  Other than that I have no real complaints. 

This is an entertaining Corman Poe adaptations and ranks as one of his best efforts.  There are a few things I didn’t like, but for the most part this is a highly entertaining movie that I recommend everyone add to their collection.

3 ½ out of 4

John “El Juan” Shatzer