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
Gothic film audience response" characterize Gothic films like they did the literary works. "The Encyclopedia of the Gothic" said the foundation of Gothic film was the combination of Gothic literature, stage melodrama, and German expressionism. In "The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction", Misha Kavka says Gothic film is not an established genre, rather contributing Gothic images, plots, characters, and styles to films. These elements are often found in "the broader category of "horror"". Kavka quotes William Patrick Day's definition of the Gothic, "[it] tantalizes us with fear, both as its subject and its effect; its does so, however, not primarily through characters