No real spoilers for anyone who has already read the Poe story. Not for the squeamish, this film vividly shows a bound prisoner trying to loose his bonds as an infernal machine drops the sharpened pendulum closer and closer to his body. From the initial image of a candle being blown out to the sight of a hooded figure, tension is palpable. Bags of grain acting as counterweights to the pendulum are periodically being punctured by machinery. Bosch-like images are seen throughout the room; the pendulum apparatus is being lowered through the maw of a skeleton drawing. While the man's method of enlisting the rats' aid in his escape seems hopeful (the title of the film, translated, is The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope) his escape seems to be temporary and the black-robed hooded figure from the beginning of the film appears again, motioning to the man (to what, we can only guess) before the film ends in a blackout.
Review of The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope
