BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965)
(a.k.a. IL BOIA SCARLATTO)
Article #684 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-28-2003
Posting Date: 6-27-2003
Directed by Massimo Pupillo
Featuring Mickey Hargitay, Walter Brandi and Moa Tahi

Photographers and beautiful models find themselves terrorized by a sadistic torturer known as The Crimson Executioner.

The basic concept has been done many times before, usually much better. The dubbing is pretty bad, which certainly doesn’t help matters much. There are certain flashes of creativity in the torture sequences, particularly in one that takes place in an unlikely room involving a spider web, a fake spider, and several bow-and-arrow traps; the bizarre thing about this torture is it just doesn’t feel like the type of direct torture that our villain engages in for the rest of the movie. The oddest thing by far is the villain’s motivation for his acts, to wit “to keep his perfect body free from contamination.” Is this the dark side of body-building? The dialogue is so ludicrous, and Mickey Hargitay so deranged (especially in the last half of the movie), that it all becomes entertaining in spite of its unpleasantness.