Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories have been made into movies and TV shows of varying quality. I was pleasantly surprised by the Netflix show The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as the obscure animated film Extraordinary Tales, which takes a far more literal interpretation of the stories. “The Pit and the Pendulum” is one of Poe’s stories that has been extrapolated and expanded into a full-length feature film more than once. It was done by Roger Corman as part of his Poe series of films in the 1960s, and it was done by Stuart Gordon in 1991. Since the story is rather short and there’s not much in terms of a plot that would fill up 90+ minutes of screen time, some significant liberties had to be taken in both movies. However, I cannot say that I appreciate all those liberties that were taken in this particular interpretation of the horror classic.

Pros

Lance Henrikson’s over-the-top performance is pretty captivating
Gruesome gory effects
References to other Poe stories

Cons

Dumb characters
Unbelievable heroics
Plot goes in circles and moves aimlessly along
Acting from some of the supporting cast is weak
A bit too r@pe-y to be enjoyable

Plot & Thoughts

It’s 1492 in Toledo, Spain. The Spanish Inquisition is at the height of its power and influence as it is torturing and killing the citizens of the country deemed to be heretics and witches. Leading the charge in this crusade against the people of Spain is the High Inquisitor, Torquemada (Lance Henrikson), a man whose cruelty is only matched by his zealous and insane piety. One day, the local baker, Antonio (Jonathan Fuller), and his incredibly stupid naive dumb saintly wife, Maria (Rona De Rici), get swept up in a mob rushing towards the next public execution. Driven by her empathy to put a stop to the violence—despite the fact that it would be very unwise to interfere—Maria attempts to stop the public torture of a child. As anyone but Maria might expect, she’s imprisoned and deemed a witch. Antonio tries to free her multiple times, but to no avail. Unfortunately for both of them, Toquenado has become infatuated with Maria, believing that his lustful desires for her are part of Maria’s bewitchment of him. And the film goes on for a while until, thankfully, it ends…

Before I get into the gripes I have with The Pit and the Pendulum, let me talk about the reason to even watch this movie, which is Lance Henriksen. Henriksen is probably best known as the polite android, Bishop, from Aliens. It was a relatively quiet role. However, when given the chance to turn up the intensity, he does not miss the opportunity to be bombastic and crazy. He’s one of the best reasons to watch the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic directed by John Woo, Hard Target, because he’s so ridiculous and nutty in that movie. Well, he brings that energy and intensity to his role as the lustful and zealous Torquemada. As uncomfortable as many of the scenes are in this movie, I was still laughing a lot of the time he was on screen because of how crazy his performance was. According to the trivia on IMDB, he was employing the method acting technique for this role, and, at some point, he ended up in the Vatican and chased some tourists around while yelling obscenities. I would have preferred to watch that over The Pit and the Pendulum, but we don’t always get what we want.

As much as I enjoy Lance Henrikson, even when he’s phoning in a performance, he cannot save this movie. It’s not a trainwreck of a film, but it still sucks. The two main issues I have lie with the plot and the protagonists. Since it was based on a short story, a fair amount had to be invented for the script, but the writers clearly couldn’t come up with a plot that felt like it was going anywhere. A lot of the movie feels like it’s going in circles as the characters escape capture, are recaptured, and then have to engage in a scene that feels very similar to a previous scene. There is just an ongoing tug-of-war with the plot’s progression that makes it seem like nothing significant is accomplished until the final act. If not for Henrikson being a psycho, and if not for the various scenes that were uncomfortable due to their sexually malicious tone, I would have been bored to tears.

As for the characters other than Torquemada, they range from dull to unlikable. Jeffrey Combs has a relatively small role in this film and doesn’t get to flex his insanity muscles much in Henrikson’s shadow. Unfortunately, we’re forced to spend the majority of our time with Maria and Antonio. Maria is so insanely naive and dumb, I was actively rooting for her demise. Everything that happens to her is a result of her being foolish, which is a sign that the writers couldn’t come up with a better or legitimate reason for her to end up imprisoned and tortured. Antonio, meanwhile, is just supposed to be an unassuming baker but ends up being the best swordsman in Europe because he takes on and defeats countless soldiers in combat throughout the film, sometimes using just a big soup ladle. Since a fair amount of how everything gets wrapped up relies on the suspension of disbelief and some supernatural powers, I’m going to assume the unbelievable abilities of Maria and Antonio are just divine intervention. It’s too bad that God didn’t choose to intervene in the making of this movie.

The only other thing I’ll mention that I considered a highlight of the film happens in the latter half. At some point, a woman is burned at the stake and explodes. Like a human grenade, her bones spray out into the crowd, killing people with her bodily shrapnel. It’s absurd, and it made me laugh pretty hard, so I figured I’d share that in case you wanted to see it for yourself. It still doesn’t save the film.

TL;DR

Apart from an over-the-top performance by Lance Henrikson, The Pit and the Pendulum is a dull and forgettable film that feels a lot longer than its relatively short runtime. The plot meanders. The characters are unlikable or uninteresting. I read the original story after watching this to cleanse my palate, and I’d recommend you just read it for yourself instead of watching this poor interpretation of it.

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