Bloody Pit of Horror

1965 "He was a homicidal maniac who LIVED TO KILL!"
4.5| 1h27m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 28 November 1965 Released
Producted By: International Entertainment
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A photographer and his models go to an old, abandoned castle for a photo shoot. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is inhabited by a lunatic who believes himself to be the reincarnated spirit of a 17th-century executioner whose job it is to protect the castle against intruders.

Genre

Horror

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Director

Massimo Pupillo

Production Companies

International Entertainment

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Bloody Pit of Horror Audience Reviews

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.
Console best movie i've ever seen.
Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Michael Ledo A group of people are looking for a castle for a calendar girl photo shoot. They find a castle occupied my a modern Marquis de Sade who must torture and kill sinners in unique ways."Bloody Pit of Horror" is the US cut version, 9 minutes shorter than the original, released under the title "A Tale of Torture." The cut scenes had to do with film quality ad not content. Body Builder Mickey Hargitay is in this film for the ladies and there are a lot of scantily clad women for the guys. Max, an older guy, walks in on the ladies while they are changing and doesn't brag about it to Howard Stern.Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.
soulexpress The opening credits read, "Based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade." Well yes, in that they both come from Europe. But I'm guessing de Sade never created a character known as the Crimson Executioner. (Haven't read the man, so I can't say for sure.)The plot: in rural Italy, a publisher, his photographer and models come to a centuries-old castle to take pictures for the book jackets of a horror series. The castle's owner, Travis Anderson (Mickey Hargitay), believes that he is descended from the Crimson Executioner, a 17th-century madman whose torture and killing of young women earned him death by the Iron Maiden. The clearly insane Anderson takes it upon himself to pick up where the CE left off. He spends the night torturing his houseguests in the castle's well-equipped dungeon until he is killed in "the poison embrace of the Lover of Death," one of his numerous torture devices.Once Anderson "becomes" the CE, he stops referring to himself in the first person. Now it's, "The Crimson Executioner will torture you," or, "No one escapes the wrath of the Crimson Executioner!" Makes me wonder if Bob Dole ever saw this film.The dialogue is dreadful, and not just due to the execrable dubbing job; I suspect it was written that way in the original Italian. Example: "I had to abandon the world. Mankind is made up of inferior creatures, spiritually and physically deformed, who would have corrupted the harmony of my perfect body!"The castle provides a suitable backdrop for what is supposed to be a Gothic horror story but is nowhere near horrifying. The suspense scenes offer no suspense while the torture scenes are surprisingly mild-- even when the torture devices themselves are diabolically clever. One scene offers the most hilariously inept fake spider ever to grace the big screen.This movie is so awful, I wouldn't like it even if it were good.
Leofwine_draca This camp, shocking and thoroughly entertaining Italian Gothic movie is a far cry from the slow-paced dread which Bava and Freda inserted into their earlier Gothic horrors, but this doesn't make it any less of a movie. Instead of concentrating on atmosphere and suspense, THE CRIMSON EXECUTIONER focuses on frantic action and sleazy/ghastly scenes of torture and depravity. It's a pretty tough film for '65, with brief nudity and mild gore seen in the uncut print, in scenes of torture which of course would reoccur on the Euro-scene almost five years later with the likes of THE BLOODY JUDGE and MARK OF THE DEVIL. Unlike those gruelling gruefests, however, THE CRIMSON EXECUTIONER is a whole lot of fun! The main enjoyment comes from Mickey Hargitay (THE LOVES OF HERCULES), here playing against type as the villain. Hargitay goes way beyond the call of duty with his portrayal of the deranged, musclebound and vain Anderson, obsessed with the corruption of human society he sees around him and with keeping his bronzed body in an immaculate condition. Scenes of Hargitay running around cackling "I am the Crimson Executioner" while applying various tortures are a delight to watch - and in the cult fan's eye, probably the highlight of Hargitay's career as a whole.The film begins with a prologue showing the REAL Crimson Executioner being sentenced and lead to his death in the Iron Maiden (it makes such an impact that it was later copied in the German Gothic THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM). After this, we cut forward to the present day and immediately amid clichés as a group of assorted types (the 'plain Jane', the joker, the boss, the lovers, the beauties and the unexpected hero) break into a spooky old castle and find themselves the guest of a cold Hargitay. After some scene-setting and comic scenes of horror photographs being taken (complete with people dressed as skeletons and various torture devices), tragedy strikes when a man is accidentally impaled and killed. Later investigation shows a mysterious hooded figure on a photograph taken at the time of death - I wonder who it could be? Meanwhile a pair of lovers make their way into the forbidden cellar and are brutally killed for their trespassing, with the girl's body being placed inside the Iron Maiden! A catalogue of bizarre deaths quickly befall the rapidly diminishing group in a variety of imaginative ways, such as the man driving to get the police who is shot through the neck with an arrow and left to drive his car in circles forever, or at least until the petrol runs out.One of the movie's most memorable scenes sees a young beauty being caught in a gigantic spider's web and menaced by one of the cheesiest, most-phony looking papier mache spiders ever created (yes, even cheesier than the spiders in THE BEYOND!). Definitely a must-see moment for fans of campy delights. After her rescuer seems to take about half an hour to crawl under some deadly traps to rescue her, he finds himself too later as she has already been poisoned and killed. Fancy that! Meanwhile, Hargitay (aka "The Crimson Executioner") has assembled the remaining survivors in his torture chamber. In the film's kinkiest moment, a pair of women are tied to a rotating pillar while knives gouge at their breasts as they spin past! Tthe film's hero is tied to a bed and trapped underneath a slowly lowering spiked roof (an idea taken from A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins); luckily, he manages to escape just in the nick of time. Just when you thought things couldn't get any cooler, the final twenty minutes is the best bit of the entire movie, packed with insane action and delirious entertainment.The supporting Italian cast are all very good in the movie, whilst the music effectively sets the score (and is openly humorous in places). The photography is extremely colourful, really bringing out the brightness of Hargitay's bizarre costume against the greys and browns of the castle behind him. The pacing, scripting and direction are also spot-on. Basically, this is an impeccable cult horror movie, totally over the top and hilarious to boot, with Mickey Hargitay like you've never seen him before (and never will see him again). Grandiose stuff, very dramatic and exciting and a highlight of the Gothic genre overall, and definitely a film I will want to come back to time and time again.
ctomvelu1 Italiuan schlokfest about a group of people who set up a photography shoot in an old castle inhabited by a retired actor who (we shall soon discover) believes himself to be the reincarnation of a 17th century killer known as the Crimson Executioner. Mickey Hargitay, Mariska's dad, plays the killer in extremely campy style, dressed only in red tights, a Zorro mask and a red hood. The photography models are all gorgeous and very scantily clad. The death scenes are nothing to write home about, although the old castle itself is a hoot. And yes, it really is an old castle. Supposedlky based on the writings of de Sade. Decent photography and music make up for the horrible acting and hokey deaths. I don't know how I missed this low-budget beauty back in 1965.