Following The Fall of the House of Usher, this was the second of Roger Corman's gothic movies loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe tales and produced by the low-budget exploitation studio American International. Both starred the larger-than-life barnstorming aesthete Vincent Price and had literate scripts (the work of pulp writer Richard Matheson, author of Spielberg's Duel), handsome sets (production designer Daniel Haller) and widescreen colour photography (veteran Floyd Crosby, who'd won an Oscar in 1931 for Murnau's Tabu). Their style and opulence belie the modest budgets and shooting schedules (in this case, $300,000 and 15 days). Received with grudging respect by the press, Time magazine called it "Edgar Allan poetic", while Hollywood Reporter wrote of "a class suspense-horror film of the calibre of the excellent ones done by Hammer".
Poe's brief tale The Pit and the Pendulum (published in 1842) centres on a sadistic torture machine used by the Spanish Inquisition, so Matheson saved it for the film's hair-raising climactic scene. It's preceded by a story of his own invention. This involves a young Englishman (John Kerr, juvenile star of Tea and Sympathy and South Pacific) who comes to mid-16th-century Spain to visit the grave of his young sister at the coastal castle of the aristocratic Medina clan, and to meet her unhinged, guilt-ridden widower Nicholas (Vincent Price). He provides some clever twists, and Corman enhances the narrative with assorted shocks and tinted flashbacks reminiscent of the silent cinema. The movie is rich in Poe-like themes, incidents and atmosphere – a cursed heritage, a doomed mansion, crepuscular dungeons, premature burial, revenants. Price's animated performance, alternating between menace and madness, is highlighted by the po-faced supporting cast. The British actress Barbara Steele, who had already become a "scream queen" in Italian horror flicks, here makes her first and only Hollywood film as Price's wife, but because of her supposed regional accent she was dubbed.
This Blu-ray version does justice to Crosby's lighting, Haller's decor and Corman's growing confidence in his choice of images, and there are commentaries by Corman and horror specialist Tim Lucas, a making-of documentary (featuring the highly articulate Steele) and a performance of Poe stories by Price in front of a live audience.
