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
Quatermass and the Pit August 1997. The BBC made "Quatermass and the Pit" available to buy on VHS videotape in the mid-80s, edited into a two-part compilation format. This was a new compilation made from the episodic film recordings, which had optical sound and telecined film inserts. This was re-released on VHS by Paradox Films, Total Home Entertainment and Revelation Films in 1995, and subsequently on DVD by Revelation Films in 2000. The full, unedited, episodic version of the serial was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2005, as part of "The Quatermass Collection" box set. Also included were the surviving two episodes