The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) Tomb of Ligeia". Film critic Tim Lucas and writer Ernesto Gastaldi have both noted the film's strong influence on numerous subsequent Italian thrillers, from Mario Bava's "The Whip and the Body" (1963) to Dario Argento's " Deep Red " (1975). Stephen King has described one of "Pit"'s major shock sequences as being among the most important moments in the post-1960 horror film. In sixteenth century Spain, Englishman Francis Barnard (John Kerr) visits the castle of his brother-in-law Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price) to investigate the mysterious death of his sister Elizabeth (Barbara Steele). Nicholas and his younger sister Catherine (Luana Anders)
The Pit and the Pendulum he is swarmed by rats, the razor-sharp pendulum threatens to slice into him and the closing walls are red-hot. The narrator experiences the blade mostly through sound as it "hissed" while swinging. Poe emphasizes this element of sound with such words as "surcingle," "cessation," "crescent," and "scimitar", and various forms of literary consonance. Poe was following an established model of terror writing of his day, often seen in "Blackwood's Magazine" (a formula he mocks in "A Predicament"). Those stories, however, often focused on chance occurrences or personal vengeance as a source of terror. Poe may have been inspired to focus