The Pit and the Pendulum (1991 film) The Pit and the Pendulum (1991 film) The Pit and the Pendulum (released on DVD in the United States as The Inquisitor) is a 1991 American horror film directed by Stuart Gordon and based on the eponymous short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The film is an amalgamation of the aforementioned story with other Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", and it also appropriates the anecdote of "The Sword of Damocles", reassigning it to the character of Torquemada. In 1492 Spain, Grand Inquisitor Torquemada leads a bloody reign of terror. Opposed to the use of torture by the Church, Maria speaks
Quatermass and the Pit set at Riverside, enabling a sense of time having elapsed that would not have been possible in an all-live production. Made just before videotape became general at the BBC, all six episodes of "Quatermass and the Pit" were preserved for a possible repeat by being telerecorded on 35 mm film. This was achieved with a specially-synchronised film camera capturing the output of a video monitor; the process had been refined throughout the 1950s and recordings of "Quatermass and the Pit" are of high technical quality. The serial was repeated in edited form as two 90-minute episodes, entitled "5 Million Years