My senior year of high school we were discussing Poe and read "The Pit and the Pendulum", which is some pretty dark stuff (I recommend it for any and all horror lovers). Then we were shown this film version of it. There were two things our entire class agreed on; it was a truly terrible adaptation, but it was a fantastic horror film on its own.
The original story took place almost entirely in a dark prison over an indeterminable period of time. You felt the endlessness of waiting for tormentors to finally end the waiting and just kill you, or at least get on with the torture. The waiting, the sense of all the time you were in this pit was the source of terror. The pendulum was the ticking clock counting away every second of your life; and it was slow. Slow as in it took hours to even get close enough to start causing you any harm. That was the worst part.
In the film, there is no pit, and the pendulum doesn't factor in until the very end. That upset us. Still, the film itself is quite engaging and interesting, the characters are well-acted and the plot keeps you hooked. By all accounts, an excellent addition to anyone's horror movie collection. Vincent Price in particular is exhilarating to watch (but then isn't he always?).
The original story took place almost entirely in a dark prison over an indeterminable period of time. You felt the endlessness of waiting for tormentors to finally end the waiting and just kill you, or at least get on with the torture. The waiting, the sense of all the time you were in this pit was the source of terror. The pendulum was the ticking clock counting away every second of your life; and it was slow. Slow as in it took hours to even get close enough to start causing you any harm. That was the worst part.
In the film, there is no pit, and the pendulum doesn't factor in until the very end. That upset us. Still, the film itself is quite engaging and interesting, the characters are well-acted and the plot keeps you hooked. By all accounts, an excellent addition to anyone's horror movie collection. Vincent Price in particular is exhilarating to watch (but then isn't he always?).