The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961 horror film in Panavision and Pathe Color directed by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, and Luana Anders. The screenplay by Richard Matheson was loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story of the same name. Set in sixteenth-century Spain, the story is about a young Englishman who visits a forbidding castle to investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific revelations, apparently ghostly appearances and violent deaths, the young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) is a big improvement on his first, "House of Usher"… Remembered as a first-rate chiller by every kid who saw it, "Pit and the Pendulum" upped the ante for frantic action and potential grue…" Recent critical opinion of the film is not all positive. Of the 17 reviews included in a Rotten Tomatoes survey of critics regarding the title, 17% reflect negative reactions. FilmCritic.com opines that the film "...is quite a disappointment...In the end, it feels like one of [Corman's] rush jobs, which of course, it was." The film was selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section