The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1991 American horror film based on the 1842 short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The plot also incorporates elements from Poe's' "The Cask of Amontillado". The film was released on DVD in the United States as The Inquisitor.
The story is set in Spain in 1492: the height of the Spanish Inquisition. Maria, the kindhearted young wife of baker Antonio, cries out in horror when a young boy is publicly flogged as his mother is being burnt at the the stake. The Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada (Lance Henriksen) has her arrested as a witch. Antonio attempts to rescue her from the dungeons but is captured. Torquemada finds himself enchanted by Maria's beauty but denies it and has her and Antonio tortured in an attempt to prove that Maria has used spells to bewitch him. With the help of her cellmate Esmeralda, a self-confessed witch, Maria must find the strength to escape and rescue Antonio from Torquemada's newest punishment: a razor-sharp Pendulum of Death and spike-lined pit.
See also the 1961 version by Roger Corman.
Tropes:
- Almost Dead Guy: When Mendoza performs his Heel–Face Turn, Torquemada stabs him and leaves him for dead. After Torquemada is killed, Mendoza reappears—barely alive—and topples over the railing, and survives long enough to deliver some expository dialogue.
- Bald of Evil: Sinister Minister Torquemada has a shaved head save for an extreme tonsure.
- Ballistic Bone: The executioner laughs at Esmeralda as he is preparing to burn her at the stake and she curses him: telling him that he will die at the same moment she does. However, when he lights the pyre, Esmeralda explodes (It Makes Sense in Context) and he dies: speared through the heart by a fragment of her bone hurled out by the explosion.
- Blood from the Mouth: Blood starts spurting from Torquemada's mouth as a result of Esmeralda's curse.
- Building of Adventure: Apart from an early scene in Antonio's bakery and the site of the auto-da-fe, the entire film takes within the castle of Toledo.
- Buried Alive: Torquemada has the papal envoy walled up alive in the cellar (in a scene from a completely different Poe story). Later, Torquemada believes Maria is dead and seals her up inside a tomb.
- Burn the Witch!: Antonio and Maria are swept along by the crowd and forced to watch the auto-da-fé of a woman accused of witchcraft. Later Eserelda is executed by being burned at the stake.
- Coincidental Dodge: Torquemada is lying atop Maria on his bed, strangling her. In his fury, he sits upright, yanking her with him. As he does so, the thread holding a sword he keeps dangling above his bed note snaps and the sword plunges down on to the bed, stabbing through where they were lying a second ago. Torquemada takes this as a sign from God.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: When Maria resists his Scarpia Ultimatum, Torquemada beats her and cuts out her tongue, before continuing his activities, attempting to subject her husband to the worst death he can think of with the eponymous pit and pendulum.
- Dead Hat Shot: When the captain of the guard is killed by the Pendulum of Death, his demise is shown by a shot of his hat: cut in half and splattered with blood.
- Facial Horror: Fat Bastard Gomez suffers horrendous facial burns (and loses an eye) when Antonio tosses a pan of boiling oil in his face while escaping the dungeon.
- Fat Bastard: The overweight and slovenly Gomez is the assistant to the Torture Technician Mendoza, and also performs many of the menial task for the Inquisition, such as carting the bodies out of the castle and dumping them. His Establishing Character Moment is accepting money from Antonio to smuggle him into the castle, and then betraying him to guards as soon as they are inside.
- Five-Finger Discount: Street urchins filch Antonio's loaves from his basket at the market, causing him and Maria to become swept up by the crowd headed for the auto-da-fe.
- Force Feeding: Gomez and Mendoza lock Esemeralda in the stocks, place a funnel in her mouth, and force her to drink large amounts of water note until she nearly drowns.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: Following her Shameful Strip, Maria covers her breasts and crotch with her arms and hands.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Antonio is left hanging by one foot when Mendoza accidentally triggers the opening mechanism for the pit. He manages to swing up, undo the binding holding his foot, and catch the lip of the pit with his other hand. This leaves him dangling by on hand and the cover on the pit slowly closes.
- Heel–Face Turn: On hearing Torquemada state that Maria was innocent, Torture Technician Mendoza realizes that the hundreds of others he has tortured on Torquemada's command were also innocent, just as he was innocent. He attacks Torquemada to prevent him from killing Antonio, and although he is quickly struck down by Torquemada, the distraction he provides gives Antonio the opportunity to free himself.
- Hiding Behind Religion: Tomás de Torquemada runs a horrific regime in Spain where countless people are tortured and executed in show trials, all to keep up a weak show of false piety to mask his sadism.
- Human Resources: During the opening scene, after having a dead man’s skeleton flogged, Torqumada has his bones ground to powder in a massive mortar and pestle and poured into a hourglass which keeps at his desk.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Torquemada falls down the eponymous pit and is impaled on the multitude of spikes at the bottom.
- Iron Maiden: During his escape from the dungeon, Antonio shoves a guard into an iron maiden and kicks the door closed. At another point, during the Cardinal’s visit, among other implements shown a prisoner is seen being removed from one such device.
- Job Title: The Inquisitor (US dvd title)
- Karma Houdini: Francisco and Dr. Huesos suffer no punishment for their part in the tortures and murders (and Francisco even implies that the tortures and killings are just going to start all over again). Gomez also survives, albeit disfigured.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Torquemada attempts to rape Maria but fails because he cannot get it up. He then accuses her of having bewitched his manhood.
- The Man They Couldn't Hang: Mendoza survived being crucified, and has the holes in his hands to prove it.
- Pendulum of Death: Torquemada attempts to execute Antonio with the eponymous pendulum.
- Portrait Painting Peephole: Torquemada has peephole concealed behind a stained glass window that allows him to secretly watch his torturers at work.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Francisco and Dr. Huesos, who are torturing people simply because it is their job (unlike Mendoza to whom it is a holy calling, and Gomez who is a sadist). When Esmeralda offers to confess to whatever they want, Francisco patiently explains that they cannot just accept her confession, because she might be confessing just to avoid being tortured. Only confessions obtained under torture are considered legitimate evidence of heresy.
- Railing Kill: Almost Dead Guy Mendoza reappears after Torquemada's death, toppling over the rail and falling to floor of the chamber where the Pendulum of Death is located.
- Rump Roast: The Inquisition attempts to torture Antonio by strapping him to a metal chair and lighting a fire under it. Antonio resists the torture and even laughs at how feeble it is.note Assuming there is something wrong with the chair, Gomez unstraps to Antonio to examine it. Antonio immediately makes a break for freedom, shoving the captain of the guards into the chair as he does so. The captain immediately leaps to his feet; clutching his buttocks and yelping in pain.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: When Torquemada lusts after Maria, he has her arrested and tortured before imprisoning her husband and attempting to extort sex from her in exchange for his life.
- Shameful Strip: Torquemada has Maria stripped in front of him and his cronies as part of her interrogation by the Inquisition, in search of a “Witch’s Mark”.
- Sinister Minister: Brother Torquemada, head of the Inquisition.
- Stock Punishment: Esmeralda is locked in a pillory horizontally, so her torturers can pour water down her throat till she almost drowns.
- Swarm of Rats: As in Poe's original story, a swarm of rats overrun Antonio as he strapped under the Pendulum of Death, and he is able to entice them into gnawing through his bonds.
- Tap on the Head: Antonio is knocked out by a quick blow from the guard captain's sword hilt at the auto-da-fé.
- A Taste of the Lash: The film opens with Torquemada ordering a man's body disinterred from his crypt and flogged for his sins. Later the man's young son is flogged in front of the crowd at his wife's execution. Later, when Torquemada is having impure thoughts regarding Maria, he orders his Torture Technician to flog him.
- Tongue Trauma: Torquemada cuts out Maria's tongue with a pair of shears so she can tell no one of his impotence.
- Torture Technician: Mendoza, who is so gifted at torture and extracting confessions from heretics, that Torquemada rescued from death by crucifixion to serve as his personal torturer. He also flagellates Torquemada whenever the Inquisitor is troubled by wicked thoughts.
- Underside Ride: Antonio gains access to the castle by hiding underneath the cart Gomez uses to transport corpses out of the castle.
- Your Head A-Splode: When being burned at the stake, Esmeralda's head (and whole body) explodes because she had been swallowing mouthfuls of gunpowder from a conveniently opened cask.
