Before special effects wizard and triple Academy Award winner Carlo Rambaldi worked on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Dune and E.T., he created not only the legendary size-doesn't-matter giant spider, but also the Lover of Death rag doll and the Tittie-Slice Rotating System for Massimo Pupillo's Bloody Pit of Horror. When Jayne Mansfield's ex-hubby Mickey Hargitay ("Mr. Universe 1958") heard that Fellini cinematographer Luciano Trasatti (I Vitelloni) was on board as well, he happily signed the 1000-Lire-contract to star as The Crimson Executioner, a saucy blend of Batman's Robin, Bertie Bizarro and the Muscle Beach Molester. Though credited to the influence of the Marquis de Sade, the script much more obviously refers to Octave Mirbeau's pre-surreal torture classic Le Jardin des supplices – a highly inventive, stranger-than-fiction dungeon purification wackorama with Hargitay in the role of his life: "The Executioner will torture you ... to death." Probably for a reason: Two years before, Jayne had booted him out of The Pink Palace, their Beverly Hills mansion with the famous heart-shaped pool. He, former plumber Mickey Hargitay, had built it himself, and that's why the Torture of Icy Water has the master touch. Got the subtext? Spell it out, not too loud: This is catharsis.
Review of Bloody Pit of Horror
