The Pit and the Pendulum

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*Nudity (FF)* *Gory*</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1990/Color/97 Min./Paramount Home Video & Full Moon Entertainment/ Rated R</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Director.............Stuart Gordon (Castle Freak, Re-Animator)</B></div> <div> <B>Screenplay.......Dennis Paoli (Castle Freak)</B></div> <div> <B>Music................Richard Band (Puppet Master, Re-Animator)</B></div> <div> <B>Producer...........Albert Band (The Pit and the Pendulum)</B></div> <div> <B>Executive Producer.....Charles Band (Castle Freak, Re-Animator)</B></div> <div> <B>Special Effects Make-up Greg Cannom (Exorcist III)</B></div> <div> <B>Special Effects by Giovani Corridori</B></div> <div> <B>Adapted from the Short Story by Edgar Allan Poe </B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Dramatis Personae</U></B></div> <div> <B>Torquemada................Lance Henrickson (</B><I><B>Alien, Near Dark, Pumpkinhead, Millenium</B></I><B>-TV</B><B>)</B></div> <div> <B>Maria...........................Rona DeRicci</B></div> <div> <B>Antonio........................Jonathan Fuller (</B><I><B>Castle Freak</B></I><B>)</B></div> <div> <B>Esmerelda...................Frances Bay</B></div> <div> <B>Mendeca.....................Mark Margolis</B></div> <div> <B>Francisco....................Jeffrey Combs (</B><I><B>Frightmare, From Beyond, Re-Animator</B></I><B>)</B></div> <div> <B>Gomez........................Stephen Lee</B></div> <div> <B>Don Carlos..................Tom Towles</B></div> <div> <B>Dr. Hochos..................William J. Norris</B></div> <div> <B>Cont. D'Alba Molina....Carolyn Purdy Gordon (</B><I><B>From Beyond</B></I><B>)</B></div> <div> <B>T</B><B>he Cardinal...............Oliver Reed (</B><I><B>Gladiator, Burnt Offerings</B></I><B>)</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Critique</U></B><B>: </B><B>The fact that events such as these really took place makes the numerous, grueling torture scenes scarier than the standard horror movie. </B><B>The trials are by the book: a healer who's an old hag, a beautiful woman, and constitute an historically plausible portrayal of witch trials, except in this one God steps in on the side of the accused. </B><B>Torquemada is of course an historical figure portrayed with depth by horror movie veteran Lance Henrickson. Torquemada's impotent passion is a thing to behold. </B><B>The inquisitor's sexual fears surely represent a major source of the tortures that took place. The logic of the inquisitor, that true salvation comes only through pain, is </B><B>a thing of beauty. Also compelling is the portrayal of the independence of the inquisition from all authority--Rome or all others--you will marvel at the logical gymnastics in interpreting the will of God. </B><B>Great pace, engaging characters and a brutal realism make this film </B><B>a sure bet for the unsqueamish. Do not expect the viewing to be a comfortable expeience, however, unless of course you are a sadist. </B><B>The pit and the pendulum play almost no role. </B><B>Carolyn Purdy G</B><B>ordon (</B><I><B>From Beyond</B></I><B>) is t</B><B>he wife of director Stuart Gordon. Followed by a fairly interesting </B><I><B>Full Moon Video Magazine</B></I><B>. Filmed in Giove, Italy in the same castle as was </B><I><B>Castle Freak</B></I><B>.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Plot Summary</U></B><B>: Death is a certainty, only its time is not. Spain 1492. Inquisitors open a stone coffin to find the remains clutching its cross. It is avowed 'Satan is ever present amongst us. The holy inquisition finds you guilty of heresy and you and your descendants must be cleansed in blood'. Don Alphonso forfeits his worldly possessions to the church, much to the chagrin of his heirs. 20 posthumous lashes and the skelletal remains fall apart to the less than religious ecstasy of the onlooking christians. The sadistic torturer has to be stopped. See the large forhead? Clearly a jew. Contessa Dioma De lemma is a confessed heretic. She is gruesomely strangled and then set on the pyre to burn. When Maria runs out to protest the flogging of the contessa's son, her husband Antonio is struck to the ground and she is arrested as a witch. When brother Torquimada, the grand inquisitor of Spain,  touches her a spark flies in his mind. It is decided that she be arrested. Maria is stripped to the enjoyment of the tribunal. Her denial is part of the proof that she's a witch. The inquisitors enjoy probing for a third nipple where satan may suck. The chief inquistitor has himself flogged. He is bedeviled by thoughts of Maria. Clearly she's a witch, what with her denying it and coming to his dreams? She's a witch. Confessions are accepted only under torture. Maria is put on the rack but she escapes her pain by going to a dream world where she finds Esmerelda, a midwife witch she met in the dungeon. Antonio sneaks into the castle. Unfortunately, the good fellow that helped Antonio sneak in shows up with guards. Torquimada takes Maria away to interrogate her himself. Torquimada takes Maria to watch Antonio's torture. Antonio gets away and actually has Torquimada with a knife to his throat but Maria claims no member of the chruch would lie. Next we see some jews having their hands and feet burned. The cardinal, an emissary from Rome who demands that Torquimada have an audience with the pope, is told that he had an accident en route. The seal of the pope doesn't seem to help the cardinal. Walled in-another Poe motif. Torquimada agrees to let Antonio live if Maria will love him. Maria's tongue is cut off by Torquimada so she cannot tell of his impotence. Esmarelda urges Maria that she has the gift to speak in others' minds, and then sends her into an artificial coma. She tells the guards that Maria is dead. It looks like Torquimada's edict that the next witch killed under torture will bring about the torrture of the killer, and no one but the grand inquisior does tongues. No, he says she was not a witch. Nice logic. Esmarelda eats some gunpowder and when she's burned at the stake she explodes on the people around her. Antonio is put beneath the pendulum that swings above him. The witch's last words were that Maria live. Antonio escapes the pit and pendulum a la Poe and goes to Maria's crypt. Well, when Maria rises from the grave and proclaims him murderer in his mind, that's it for Torquimada. Torquimada is then doomed to be pursued by all who he tortured to death. Torquimada's retort is that they all confessed their sins. However, he is then chased into one of his own inventions and falls through the floor to be</B><B> skewered.</B></div> </td> </tr></table></body>