The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Not the psychedelic and existential terror of The Masque of the Red Death, but a quite different beast indeed; the tale of a man driven to the edge of insanity by the possibility that evil can be inherited.

Knowing the slender plot of the original short story, screenwriter extraordinaire, Richard Matheson wisely blends several elements from Poe into a hideously deformed, bastard child of the sort that you would lock away in your deepest dungeon, knowing that one day they would break free!

Price plays the haunted and fragile Medina brilliantly, but if there's one complaint, it's that The Pit and the Pendulum, like all good gothic horrors, needs more Barbara Steele.

Cobwebs, dungeons, gargoyles, secret passages, torture devices, lightning, skeletons, and red candles, lots and lots of red candles. This is high-gothic!

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