If you think that Pit and The Pendulum and House of Usher were the same movie, you
aren’t the only one. Roger Corman
directed once again, he used the same screenwriter and cinematographer, and the
music was scored by the same guy. The
themes are similar – sins of the father being visited upon the son, premature
burial, life and love and death and madness [madness…madness…madness…]. Francis
Barnard [John Kerr] is like the Philip Winthrop character from House of Usher, but instead of coming to
claim a bride he’s coming to investigate his dead sister. Like Winthrop, Barnard has to contend with a
barely-balanced brother-in-law, Nicholas Medina [Vincent Price]. And also like Winthrop, Barnard refuses to
take “no” for an answer and won’t leave until he gets one that satisfies him. Barnard is more of an asshole about it,
though.
Don Medina’s father was just as evil as Roderick Usher’s family. His father was a member of the Spanish
Inquisition [“Nobody expects the Spanish
Inquisition!”] who had his own torture chamber. As a small child, Nicholas used to sneak to
the dungeon to player in the torture chamber.
One day, he saw his father bring his mother Isabella and his uncle,
Bartolome. He watched him beat Bartolome
with a red-hot poker [whilst screaming “adulterer” over and over again]. He then entombed Isabella behind a brick wall
while she was still alive. So when
Nicholas Medina entombed his wife Elizabeth, he feared he did so
prematurely. It was his greatest fear
that he who share the same fate.
Nicholas believes Elizabeth’s ghost is haunting the castle. He hears her harpsichord playing in the
middle of the night. He and Barnard open
Elizabeth’s tomb and find a withered corpse inside that was trying to get
out. Nicholas is now convinced he buried
Elizabeth alive. Now he’s afraid – very afraid,
then he hears her voice calling for him.
He went to her room and found it was trashed. He’s going insane. He went back downstairs to her crypt and
found her walking towards him. Then it
looks as if he drops dead of a heart attack.
His best friend, Dr. Leon, has been having an affair with
Elizabeth. Thinking Nicholas was dead,
the two of them begin to mock Nicholas about their plan to drive him insane so
they can inherit his fortune and run away to be together. However…Nicholas woke up, thinking he was his
father. He pushed the good doctor into
the pit [killing him], and he threw Elizabeth into an iron maiden. Meanwhile, Barnard came downstairs. Nicholas, now completely insane, confused
Barnard with his dead uncle Bartolome.
What happened next? You guessed
it – Barnard got strapped to a table and Nicholas fired up the pendulum. Of course, as it swung it came down a few
inches until it finally started splitting Barnard’s shirt. But just in the nick of time, Nicholas’
younger sister Catherine and Maximilian [one of the servants] bust in and save
Barnard. Nicholas and Maximilian tangle
for a short time before Nicholas joins Dr. Leon in the pit. At the movie’s end, we see Barnard,
Catherine and Maximilian leave the torture chamber, vowing to seal it
forever. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is still
trapped inside the iron maiden. It sucks
to be her… J
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