THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, starring Vincent Price (Nicholas Medina), is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic horror story, set in sixteenth-century Spain. The film opens with Francis Barnard (John Kerr) arriving at Nicholas Medina’s (Price) castle to investigate the death of his sister, Elizabeth (Barbara Steele), Medina’s deceased wife. Medina offers only a vague explanation as to the cause of her death, claiming she had become infatuated with the castle’s torture chamber. As Francis unravels the gruesome details of Elizabeth’s death he uncovers the secrets of Medina’s disturbing past. Each character becomes haunted by the ghost and corpse of Elizabeth, and Medina, on the verge of insanity, realizes his wife is not really dead.