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)
Quatermass and the Pit (film) "Quatermass and the Pit" continues to be generally well regarded among critics. John Baxter notes in "Science Fiction in the Cinema" that “Baker's unravelling of this crisp thriller is tough and interesting. […] The film has moments of pure terror, perhaps the most effective that in which the drill operator, driven off the spaceship by the mysterious power within is caught up in a whirlwind that fills the excavation with a mass of flying papers.” John Brosnan, writing in "The Primal Scream", found that, “As a condensed version of the serial, the film is fine but the old black-and-white version,