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) cast…Roger Corman has evoked a genuinely chilling mood of horror." "Variety" noted, "The last portion of the film builds with genuine excitement to a reverse-twist ending that might have pleased Poe himself...a physically stylish, imaginatively photographed horror film…" The "Los Angeles Examiner" said it was "…one of the best "scare" movies to come along in a long time…skillfully directed by Corman…with Vincent Price turning in the acting job of his career…." Brendan Gill of "The New Yorker" felt it was "a thoroughly creepy sequence of horrors..." "Time" called the film "a literary hair-raiser that is cleverly, if self-consciously, Edgar Allan