Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 15
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
Release Date: Aug 12, 1961 Wide
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 8,002
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American-International's standing "haunted castle" set is exhibited to peak advantage in Roger Corman's Pit & the Pendulum. Save for the climax, Richard Matheson's script bears but little resemblance to the Edgar Allen Poe original, though there are pronounced echoes throughout of Poe's The Premature Burial. Vincent Price stars as Nicholas Medina, the son of a notorious Spanish Inquisition torturer. Nicholas' wife Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) has died under mysterious circumstances, prompting
Aug 12, 1961 Wide
Jun 5, 2001
American International Pictures (AIP)
All Critics (18) | Top Critics (1) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (3) | DVD (7)
The film ends up being very nearly as good [as House of Usher], and better in some respects.
The title calls out for lustrous Freudian hysteria, and Corman delivers
Vincent Price lording over a giant torture pendulum! Awesome.
It reminds us that flat, colorless character actors look really flat and colorless when sharing a scene with Price.
MGM's new DVD edition of The Pit and the Pendulum comes with an illuminating audio commentary by Roger Corman, whose extraordinary memory supplements any film school's how-to-direct syllabus.
Corman estabelece uma boa atmosfera de tensão, sendo auxiliado na tarefa pela bela direção de arte e por um Vincent Price mais do que inspirado.
Typical Corman-Poe flick with a few unintended laughs thanks to Vinnie's campiness.
The best of the Roger Corman Poe films.
Even Vincent Price has little to do
It was so great to get to see two of my favourite horror stars together for once: Price and Steele. This is one of my favourite of Corman's Poe series, and not just for that reason, the movie is really intense and exciting too. I really like it.
September 5, 2010Super Reviewer
A very different adaptation of Poe's story; Corman is able to build a tense atmosphere with a firm direction, one great art direction and Price's magnetic performance.
October 22, 2009Super Reviewer
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