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Released
1991 · FILM

The Pit and the Pendulum

“A bizarre descent into hell from the creator of Re-Animator.”

Directed by
Stuart Gordon
Written by
Edgar Allan Poe, Dennis Paoli
Runtime
97 min
HorrorRomance

Synopsis

Set during the height of the Spanish Inquisition, the story follows Maria, a beautiful and kind-hearted woman who is arrested as a witch after inadvertently crying out in horror at the public whipping of a child. As her husband, Antonio, attempts to save her, Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, becomes determined to punish Maria with torture, driven by the desire she awakens in him. The film is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 20

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Andy HorvitchShot by Adolfo BartoliScored by Richard BandDesigned by Giovanni Natalucci

Box Office

1991 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.0× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$3K

Budget$2.0M
Worldwide gross$3K
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Meister des Grauensde
  • The Inquisitoren
  • The Pit & the Pendulumen
  • Le Puits et le Pendulefr
  • Il pozzo e il pendoloit

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