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
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) the Body" (1963), had "shown me an Italian print of "The Pit and the Pendulum" before I started writing it: 'Give us something like this', they said." When asked if another of his films, "The Long Hair of Death" (1964), was inspired by Corman's film, Gastaldi replied, "Yes, of course! "The Pit and the Pendulum" had a big influence on Italian horror films. Everybody borrowed from it." Stephen King felt that one of the film's most powerful shocks—the discovery of Elizabeth's hideously decayed corpse—had a major impact on the genre and served as one of the most significant horror sequences