Doctor Movie: Episode 305: The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)

Show Notes

Join Doctor Movie for a look at your favorite movies from behind the steering wheel. We go into the early 90s for a Full Moon production of the classic Edgar Allen Poe story The Pit and the Pendulum. With a stellar cast you really can’t go wrong with this one.

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SPEAKER_1: Lance Henderson is pissed off because he's got the worst haircut in history, I believe.

SPEAKER_1: And he takes it out on everybody in the town.

SPEAKER_1: Nope, it's not man's best friend.

SPEAKER_1: We're talking The Pit and the Pendulum right here on Doctor Movie.

SPEAKER_1: Hoochie-Boochie.

SPEAKER_1: It's Doctor Movie time.

SPEAKER_1: Welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_1: If you're new, welcome aboard.

SPEAKER_1: This show is done while I'm driving down the road, which currently I'm trying to dodge a truck.

SPEAKER_1: There we go, got him out of the way.

SPEAKER_1: And we are in a newer vehicle, well, I say newer, new to me vehicle.

SPEAKER_1: For those that's been listening, you remember the the Blunicorn for quite a while.

SPEAKER_1: Well, it gave up the ghost.

SPEAKER_1: And then I was in the family car for quite a while, which is a bit quieter.

SPEAKER_1: But I've purchased another car.

SPEAKER_1: It's a little Honda CRZ, which are kind of hard to find nowadays.

SPEAKER_1: But got a good deal on it.

SPEAKER_1: And you guys know that I drive extensively.

SPEAKER_1: So this thing gets close to 43 miles a gallon, which is why I got it.

SPEAKER_1: And it's red.

SPEAKER_1: And supposedly, my granddaughter named it Reddy.

SPEAKER_1: Because it's red.

SPEAKER_1: Reddy, there you go.

SPEAKER_1: So I don't know if that name is going to stick, but we will see.

SPEAKER_1: Anywho, we are back to talk about another Full Moon movie, which this one surprisingly does not feel like the other Full Moon movies that we are used to.

SPEAKER_1: This one's got a very spectacular cast.

SPEAKER_1: Such a strange movie.

SPEAKER_1: And it's based on the Edgar Allen Poe story of Pit and the Pendulum.

SPEAKER_1: And we will get on with it here in just a second, because I'm about to exit off of a ramp.

SPEAKER_1: And I probably don't need to be trying to read a synopsis and do it at the same time.

SPEAKER_1: So here we go, ramp count down in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_1: Almost there, almost there.

SPEAKER_1: This is a lot longer ramp than I thought it was.

SPEAKER_1: All right, still turning, still turning, still turning.

SPEAKER_1: And there you go.

SPEAKER_1: There you go, all right, now let me get out here in the lanes so I don't get killed.

SPEAKER_1: And there you go, all right, so let's look at this.

SPEAKER_1: A synopsis, it says Mad Monk, Turcamita, Turcamata, Turchamita, take your pick.

SPEAKER_1: Lance Henderson wants a baker's wife, which is interesting in itself, in his torture chamber for the Spanish Inquisition.

SPEAKER_1: So yes, if you're not familiar with the story, it's going back and harking to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, which is a black eye on the culture, if you will.

SPEAKER_1: Wow.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, not the message you wanna send out.

SPEAKER_1: You either believe what we believe or we torture you.

SPEAKER_1: And no matter what aspect we're talking about, I mean, you know, that's one thing that we should all be able to have our own thoughts and own ideas.

SPEAKER_1: Unfortunately, there's a lot of places in the world that don't have it.

SPEAKER_1: And this is reflecting back when that was a really big issue, right?

SPEAKER_1: This was directed by one Stuart Gordon.

SPEAKER_1: So we just recently covered some other movies of his.

SPEAKER_1: I'm a fan.

SPEAKER_1: I like his work a lot.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know, he kind of delivered that different aspect that really stood out.

SPEAKER_1: Again, reanimator from beyond.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, these are the movies that as soon as they were over, I was grabbing the VHS tape, running to the neighbor's house going, you got to watch this crazy stuff, right?

SPEAKER_1: So he knew how to deliver something different.

SPEAKER_1: And even though we're reflecting on a Poe story, this is still quite different.

SPEAKER_1: Let's see, it came out on May 31st in 1991.

SPEAKER_1: It is considered a horror slash romance, which is hilarious.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know in what world somebody would say, oh yeah, this is a romance movie.

SPEAKER_1: What?

SPEAKER_1: Okay, anywho, that's what they've got it labeled as.

SPEAKER_1: I don't see it, but anywho, that's where we're going with this.

SPEAKER_1: As far as a cast, well, you heard me say a while ago, we got Lentz Henderson.

SPEAKER_1: He's kind of all you need, right?

SPEAKER_1: He's tour de force by himself.

SPEAKER_1: Rona DeRitchie, I'm not sure what all she's done.

SPEAKER_1: She was in the original Pit and the Pendulum.

SPEAKER_1: She's been around a while.

SPEAKER_1: We've got Jeffrey Combs, again, the reanimator himself, right?

SPEAKER_1: Doctor Herbert West.

SPEAKER_1: It's always a good time when he shows up.

SPEAKER_1: It doesn't matter what movie it is.

SPEAKER_1: If he's in there, he delivers.

SPEAKER_1: And he's Francisco in his movie.

SPEAKER_1: We've got Carolyn Purdy Gordon, which is Stuart Gordon's wife.

SPEAKER_1: She pops up in every movie.

SPEAKER_1: She's like the Sherry Moon zombie of the 80s.

SPEAKER_1: What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_1: Mark Mangolis.

SPEAKER_1: I've been in a ton of stuff.

SPEAKER_1: We just talked about Tom Tows the other day, right?

SPEAKER_1: About how hateful he is.

SPEAKER_1: He was in Fortress, which is the other Stuart Gordon movie.

SPEAKER_1: Always a bad guy.

SPEAKER_1: And we've got one Oliver Reed in this movie.

SPEAKER_1: He don't have a big part, but he plays the cardinal that comes in.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, it's Oliver Reed.

SPEAKER_1: Come on.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, if you know anything about movies, you have to tip the hat to the man, right?

SPEAKER_1: That's really all there is to talk about.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, we do have the guy that plays Gomez.

SPEAKER_1: That's in this.

SPEAKER_1: But anywho, like we said, wait a minute, we didn't do a reason or why to watch.

SPEAKER_1: And you know I got to do that.

SPEAKER_1: Why to watch?

SPEAKER_1: Here we go.

SPEAKER_1: It's cruel and terrifying.

SPEAKER_1: They just give it two words.

SPEAKER_1: I like that.

SPEAKER_1: It says, this is a dang good adaptation for any level of movie.

SPEAKER_1: It shouldn't be overlooked by mainstreamers.

SPEAKER_1: Give it a chance.

SPEAKER_1: Again, it's surprising when you see the Full Moon label come up in this movie is actually a little higher quality, I guess is the word.

SPEAKER_1: The acting is excellent.

SPEAKER_1: The script is well crafted.

SPEAKER_1: There's a nice amount of blood and gore.

SPEAKER_1: Sure.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, you get a little of all that, no doubt.

SPEAKER_1: It's just an enjoyable bit of film with all the ups and downs of a direct-to-video movie from the 90s.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know that it was direct-to-video.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, maybe it was.

SPEAKER_1: Well, it being Full Moon, probably so.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, I mean, this movie actually holds up pretty well.

SPEAKER_1: You can tell it doesn't really fit in a box.

SPEAKER_1: What I mean by that, it doesn't have the formula that you expect, right?

SPEAKER_1: Because we've got other versions of The Pit and Pendulum that are a bit more successful, I guess you'd say.

SPEAKER_1: Even though it's Roger Corman, which is ironic.

SPEAKER_1: But you had Vincent Price playing the part, and that does make a difference.

SPEAKER_1: This one kind of bounces back and forth.

SPEAKER_1: And again, it's kind of like that, it's not sure what it wants to be, or maybe Stuart knew exactly what he wanted it to be.

SPEAKER_1: It does fit in when you think about the other quotation marks horror movies that Stuart Gordon has made.

SPEAKER_1: It does fit in nicely with those.

SPEAKER_1: Because it's got a bit of humor in it.

SPEAKER_1: The fact that somebody would call this a romance movie just blows my mind.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, yes, there is a compassionate, you know, I don't want to say affair.

SPEAKER_1: They're not having an affair.

SPEAKER_1: They're married.

SPEAKER_1: But, you know, there's a passionate couple that, you know, are in love.

SPEAKER_1: The dude's a baker.

SPEAKER_1: And I have to say, when it starts off and you get just their kind of back and forth together, not the best acting.

SPEAKER_1: I thought their performance together was kind of weak.

SPEAKER_1: But as it proceeds on, it kind of levels out.

SPEAKER_1: But again, it's not why you're watching, right?

SPEAKER_1: You're watching because you want to see Lance Henderson go crazy, which he does very well in this.

SPEAKER_1: A tortured soul himself.

SPEAKER_1: And of course, you know, they're burning people at the stake because they're all witches, all that kind of good stuff.

SPEAKER_1: And they're torturing somebody, and the baker kind of gets involved and tries to stop them, which he kind of gets roughed up.

SPEAKER_1: Matter of fact, they think he's dead.

SPEAKER_1: And in the process of soul, the wife comes out, she's upset.

SPEAKER_1: Lance Henderson sees her, has her captured, takes her back to his place, and he ends up falling in love with her.

SPEAKER_1: Of course, you know, and he thinks it's a curse or a witchery going on.

SPEAKER_1: So like I said, he's a tortured soul.

SPEAKER_1: And not only does he torture people, but he tortures himself whenever he has impure thoughts, right?

SPEAKER_1: So instead of beating the bishop, the bishop gets beat, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_1: So yeah, he has a guy come in and give him some lashes.

SPEAKER_1: And it's kind of like he enjoys it.

SPEAKER_1: He pulls off his robe and he is all mangled up from...

SPEAKER_1: apparently he's had a lot of bad thoughts.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, he breaks some pottery, stands on it, cuts his feet up, and lets a dude whip him with a whip.

SPEAKER_1: You know, typical modern day Spanish Inquisition stuff.

SPEAKER_1: But he just can't break free from the spell.

SPEAKER_1: He tries to play off that the husband is dead and now she can be his and he's willing to clear her name if she will stay with him.

SPEAKER_1: But, you know, she gets thrown into a pit or a jail cell with another lady who's an older lady who kind of takes care of her.

SPEAKER_1: Oh, by the way, things get so crazy.

SPEAKER_1: And Lance Henderson's character is so sold on this, he ends up having the baker's wife's tongue cut out.

SPEAKER_1: And yeah, so he's, you know, he's serious.

SPEAKER_1: You know, that's love right there.

SPEAKER_1: But anywho, she gets in a prison cell with this lady who kind of teaches her how to deal with the pain, how you can leave and go to your happy place, just like Happy Gilmore, and it helps you deal with all the chaos going on around you.

SPEAKER_1: Lo and behold, we find out that the baker is still alive and he comes back to avenge his wife, who at this point, you've had the lady that was kind of teaching her how to use the happy place, has been burned to a crisp, which is a pretty awesome scene because she decides to eat a bunch of gunpowder and that way when she burns, she explodes and causes even more chaos.

SPEAKER_1: So she's not a witch, but she does have some abilities, I guess you would say.

SPEAKER_1: She's just a little gifted.

SPEAKER_1: But she said, hey, if they want a witch, I'll give them a witch.

SPEAKER_1: So there you go.

SPEAKER_1: So you kind of have to be on her side a bit because, you know, these people are wacko.

SPEAKER_1: And then at the end of this, you get where they think that her lady is dead, the butchers or the bakers.

SPEAKER_1: I get that mixed up.

SPEAKER_1: The baker's wife.

SPEAKER_1: So they end up having a shrine for her, putting her in a casket.

SPEAKER_1: But she can use like telekinesis to talk to her husband?

SPEAKER_1: Sure.

SPEAKER_1: And he has the feeling she's still alive.

SPEAKER_1: He tries to go and rescue her.

SPEAKER_1: And he's the one that gets trapped down to the Pendulum, which is the newest, cruelest device that they can make up to torture people.

SPEAKER_1: And of course, you know, it becomes kind of a swashbuckler at this point.

SPEAKER_1: Because you got, you know, a lot of swordplay going on, people running around, and some kind of music going on.

SPEAKER_1: So again, it's really hard to place this thing.

SPEAKER_1: And it's weird that you got this movie where people are being tortured, but there's this amount of humor in it, too, that I don't know, it kind of works.

SPEAKER_1: And you're kind of going, this is kind of a strange mixture of stuff in this movie.

SPEAKER_1: I'm finding it strange that I beat up the 90s a lot.

SPEAKER_1: It just seems like coming out of the 80s, movies were so strong, but we were getting oversaturated.

SPEAKER_1: And it just feels like the 90s, and it may be because the VHS boom that caused all the direct-to-video stuff, that it just seemed like people just didn't, you know, you don't have to put that much into it anymore, because people would just rent it.

SPEAKER_1: Right?

SPEAKER_1: And it happened to pretty much all of our franchises we like.

SPEAKER_1: It just, I don't know, it just feels like it drops the ball.

SPEAKER_1: But I will say, going back and revisiting these, they hold up a little better than I expect them to.

SPEAKER_1: So, I'm not clearing the table for all of them, but I'm just saying, I've been recently surprised with these last couple, and maybe it's just Stuart Gordon, I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: Maybe his just hold up better.

SPEAKER_1: But I have been pleasantly surprised with these last couple of 90 entries, and going, you know what?

SPEAKER_1: That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_1: And I kind of feel the same way with this one.

SPEAKER_1: I know I didn't cover much about Oliver Reed, I mean, they're kind of side characters.

SPEAKER_1: Jeffrey Combs plays a great character who's kind of on board, kind of off board with what's going on.

SPEAKER_1: He's not a fan of the Cruelty, but you know, he thinks his heart's in the right place, and you know, badly enough, he's locked in with a bunch of people that are taking this to the next level, I guess.

SPEAKER_1: So yeah, I like this movie.

SPEAKER_1: I think it's pretty dang good.

SPEAKER_1: I remember liking it back when it came out.

SPEAKER_1: So revisiting, I'm really surprised that I still feel kind of the same way about it.

SPEAKER_1: It's not overly gross, but it's got enough to keep you there.

SPEAKER_1: It's a good set piece.

SPEAKER_1: I think they did a good job with the scenery as far as making it feel the right time.

SPEAKER_1: It's a solid flick.

SPEAKER_1: Let's give it a rating.

SPEAKER_1: I give this a 3.5 out of 5.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, I haven't watched this in a long time.

SPEAKER_1: It's not one that you're going to revisit a lot.

SPEAKER_1: But surprisingly, with a reviewing of it, it holds up very well.

SPEAKER_1: So, that's kind of where I stand.

SPEAKER_1: It's probably a 4.

SPEAKER_1: I do like this movie.

SPEAKER_1: So, 3.5 to 4, somewhere around in there.

SPEAKER_1: You be the judge.

SPEAKER_1: It's on Tubi, of course.

SPEAKER_1: So, go check it out.

SPEAKER_1: And let me know what you think if you're a fan of this one.

SPEAKER_1: Be glad to hear from you.

SPEAKER_1: If you got recommendations, just drop me a message anywhere.

SPEAKER_1: And be glad to try to get your movie on the show.

SPEAKER_1: Or your comments, or your questions.

SPEAKER_1: Any of that good stuff.

SPEAKER_1: Alright folks, so that's it for another episode.

SPEAKER_1: We will.

SPEAKER_1: Check you later, yo.

SPEAKER_1: Yo.