Where to begin....
There's a terrible meandering script with horrible dialogue. No tension, no atmosphere, zero attempt at mood.
Too brightly lit. Certainly not for a sinister, foreboding theme like this. It's more appropriate for a college sex comedy.
Rather than a spooky abandoned insane asylum there's this well kept mansion where all the action occurs.
It must be somewhere in the Land of the Midnight Sun because when people are talking about turning in after a long day the sun is still high in the sky. No attempt is made to create a sense of time passing yet there are clocks everywhere.
The cast is adequate. You'll recognize Tom Sandoval from Vanderpump Rules.
They manage to adequately deliver the outrageous and pooorly written lines with some sense of credibility.
But there is none of the enthusiasm and gusto that used to be found in the old drive style movies American International in the '60s. Actors had some enthusiasm and turned the most outrageous dialogue into believable conversation using energy and total sincerety.
An exception is Amy Paffrath who seems genuine, delivers a characterization that's somewhat alive and bright.
Then one gets to the lead, Lorielle New. I tuned this in because she is so .... spooky. Like a drag version of Marie Windsor, she is the most sinister and scary aspect of the movie and it's not in the script or writing but in those awful cheek and lip implants which seem to get in the way of delivering her lines.
And in one blue lit scene where the two students are wrestling her face looks as unnerving as that of Faye Dunaway in the coat hanger scene in Mommie Dearest.
Other times she looks like those blue mid century prints of Asian women that decked the walls of the room children were never allowed to enter.
Sorry. It doesn't look good. It's a distraction and that orange hair with the Moe Howard bangs is not an asset.
So get the hook for the make up artist and hairdresser. Go back to work at that strip mall salon in Barstow where you belong.
Additionally, even with her long list of credits, Ms. New has no gift for working with props. Not pocket watches, table utensils, shawls, whips. Everything is just a dead weight in her hands rather than an opportunity to explore how the character would handle those things. For New, they just get in the way for the next costume change.
What someone else could have done sitting in that chair with her boobies hanging out and that whip watching two hot guys wrestle. Tragic lost acting opp.
Sad that one would go to such lengths to mutilate one's face to appease the gods of Youth and Hollywood. It says something a lot greater about Tinsel Town than it does Edgar Allen Poe and The Pit and the Pablu..
The irony is New is a genuine Hollywood original, I'll give her that. Like Angelyne, Edy Williams and the Black Dahlia all rolled into one. I cannot help but be fascinated by her. Maybe that's the point.
This is an awful film, but the people were good looking and the soundtrack would not have been out of place in an A or B picture. It was the most professional and effective part of the movie.
Mind Numbing Twaddle.
My 3 stars is generous because of the soundtrack, New [she's a mess] and some effort expended. Anyone can throw 100 or so million at producing a movie. It takes some bit of skill to do it for a tiny fraction of that amount.
Review of The Pit and the Pendulum
