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When in 16th century Toledo, Spain, baker's wife Maria (Rona De Ricci)
speaks out against thze inquisition, that might not prove as such a good
idea, since the head inquisitor Torquemada (Lance Henriksen) is a bit
touchy on that subject. So he has her captured & soon subjects her
to some torture, inquisition style. But he himself was aroused by the
beautiful & pure Maria & soon has to realize he is madly in love
with her. Maria's hubby meanwhile, the baker Antonio (Jonathan Fuller)
valiantly tries to free her but only manages to get himself
incarcerated, too (clever boy, he). & even when an escape attempt
proves almost successful for him & Maria, they are only recaptured
again by the trickery of Torquemada.. & when, seemingly as last
hope, a cardinal from Rome (Oliver Reed) arrives at the inquisitor's,
Torquemada shows no remorse in walling the good man in alive. But the
good man also has a tender side, which he shows when he confesses his
love to Maria, who even gives in to his demands after he has promised
her to free her husband, but when Torquemada fails to sustain an
erection when he is trying to man Maria, he cuts the girl's tongue out
in order to silence her. This seems to be the last straw for Maria, who
in order to leave her prison, now fakes her own death - she has
attained, among other things, the ability for her soul to leave the
body, from her cellmate, the good witch Esmeralda (Frances Bay) -, but
she might actually get more than she bargained for, since Torquemada has
hjer buried (alive) right on the spot. Then he subjects her hubby to his
new torturing device, a pendulum with a razorsharp blade at the bottom
to be slowly lowered upon its victim. Of course, Antonio can free
himself in the nick of time, using some rats to gnaw through his ropes,
& he even escapes Torquemada's pit full of stakes, fighting ther
inquisitor's soldiers singlehandedly & - upon receiving a telepathic
message (!) from Maria - freeing her from her tomb, who, with the help
of some magic, has Torquemada get a taste of her own torture before
finally he dies. Very much a messed up script, with white
& blacjk magic thrown in quite deliberately at the least fitting
moments, having about as much to do with Edgar Allan Poe's short story
as previous adaptations of the same by Roger Corman (The Pit and the
Pendulum - 1961) or Harald Reinl (Die Schlangengrube und das
Pendel/The Blood Demon - 1967) - in all fairness, Poe's
original The Pit & the Pendulum is one of the least cinematic of all
his stories, consisting of little more than a description of the instruments of
torture of the title -, but being no match for either of these movies.
Desperate attempts to throw in some well known motives from other
Poe-stories (The Black Cat, Premature Burial, The Cask
of Amontillado) don't help the movie one bit, actually being rather
ridiculous. But the real letdown are the performances: while Oliver
Reed's cardinal is a way too little role to leave any impression at all
& Jeffrey Combs as the inquisitor's scribe is underused, Lance
Henriksen's inquisitor is rather hammy & clichéd (he can do
better), but much worse are Rona De Ricci, who, while being quite pretty
in a naked state, does little but looking carin & worried, obviously
not understanding the proceedings one bit, & Jonathan Fuller as
all-American hero is just godawful as the male lead, being about as out
of place in 16th century Toledo as ... I don't know ... a rocketship.
& judging from his inability to act, the rocketship would probably
have done a better job in his role.
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