Welcome back to the scariest, and at times goriest, column here at Film Inquiry: Horrific Inquiry. Twice a month, I will be tackling all things horror, bringing two films back into the spotlight to terrify and frighten once more. And occasionally looking at those that could have pushed the envelope further. Join us as we dive deep into the heart of horror, but warning, there will be spoilers.
“The blood is life.” – The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)
When reading a title such as The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, it’s hard to imagine that Edgar Allan Poe was its inspiration. Based on Poe‘s short story The Pit and the Pendulum, Harald Reinl‘s The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism captures the intensity in not only uncertainty but in the excruciating pain of waiting. Also known as The Blood Demon, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum and Castle of the Walking Dead, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is a practice in patience, its plot slowly lurching to its reveal and climatic conclusion. And while not the first to be inspired by the spirit of Poe, it delivers chilling visuals, becoming an influence in its own right.
Pendulous Opening
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is far from a good horror film. Too often, audiences, especially now, will find the narrative progression too slow, constantly threatening to lose themselves to boredom. Honestly, I found myself wanting to click the fast-forward button, or increase the frame speed, to move the film along. Yet, the film’s insistence to nudge one scene at a time to its finish line feels authentic in the spirit of its inspiration. This is especially true as the film finally is within reach of Count Regula’s castle and the truth within its ruins. It is here that the drawn-out sense of expectation and terror builds the suspense and the tension.
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism opens with a magistrate and company arriving at a jail cell to read the charges against Count Regula (Christopher Lee). His crimes of murdering twelve women sealed his own fate. Announced that a regular execution would not be justifiable due to the horrific nature of his crime, Count Regula will instead be drawn and quartered. But before he can be led away to meet his death, he is covered in a sense of anonymity, a gold mask fastened over his face, Count Regula leading out through the caverns to his execution. With the “dead man walking”, the film’s opening credits play, the long walk is the first representation the film offers of Poe‘s pendulum – the slowly paced steps to death he can not escape. In this drawn-out procession, the waiting, the anxiety, and the inevitable outcome are its own sense of torture. Where one may just want the horrendous execution to be carried out swiftly, here his moment to death is drawn out.
As the opening credits conclude, Count Regula is shown laying on the ground in the town’s square, ropes from four houses connecting to each of his limbs. The crowd grows, prominent individuals shown alluding to their involvement in his capture, some more clearly than others. Nothing is rushed, each moment held out from its graphic conclusion. And as the horses are charged and Regula’s body lifts painfully from the cobblestone below him, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism transitions to a drawing of his limbs being ripped off, muting the graphic nature of the execution while effectively transitioning the film thirty-five years into the future.
The opening is an effective one, capturing the initial spirit of Poe‘s short story while crafting one of its own. There is a tension that sets in as Regula draws closer to his execution, the moments in the quarter heightening it even further as the minutes grow closer and closer. Honestly, it is one of the better crafted moments in the film, so much so that as The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism drags in its journey to Count Regula’s castle, the film takes on a heavy weight of burden rather than a cinematic or horrific experience.
A Practice in Patience
Thirty-five years into the future, one of the witnesses to Regula’s death has become the keeper of what is now his legend. As he travels the region, he uses his painted tapestry to tell the story of Regula’s murders, his attempt to achieve eternal life, and his horrific execution. Yet, where it feels as though he is just the keeper of tales, he is also a messenger, sent to bring letters to Roger Mont Elise (Lex Barker) and the Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor). Signed by Count Regula, Roger’s letter promises to give him the secrets of his past, while Lilian’s promises an inheritance – both eagerly accept the invitation, departing immediately.
It is here The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism becomes a challenging watch. While it can be seen as an exercise of patience and increasing tension that loosely mirrors the concepts of Poe‘s short film, cinematically it becomes a tiring venture that never seems to end. The individual journeys of Roger and Lilian eventually cross paths, along with Lilian’s maid Babette (Christians Rücker) and local priest Fabian (Vladimir Medar), in the wake of local criminals. Much of this portion of the film is laid out in exposition, the carriage inching closer to the castle as time swings to and fro. As representational as it can be interpreted until they reach the guest house on the castle grounds, the film is nothing more than a laborious task.
When they finally do reach the guest house, they are shocked to find it in ruins having burnt to the ground. Fear and suspicion begin to grow as Fabian’s true calling aligns more with the world of thieves than God. As Fabian speaks sign language with the presumed mute in the ruins, Roger points out that it is the language of criminals. While it can be seen as giving another layer to Fabian and the potential conflicts ahead, in retrospect, this moment perpetuates the idea in early horror films regarding those with disabilities. Too often in horror films, those with disabilities are innately and inevitably shown as lesser individuals with a pension for trouble and criminality – many falling into the roles of villains.
Inspiration and Horror Finally Meet
The true eeriness of The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism begins to set in as the caravan makes its way through the forest. There is a sinisterness that slowly seeps through the crevices of the woods, mirroring the fog looming just out of reach. As the sun sets, this feeling is dramaticly intensified as limbs, body parts and corpses hang from the trees. Visually, it is an intriguing and mysterious infusion of horror, leaning into the terrors of the mind rather than that of a narrative construct. Here, viewers are left to wonder how and who has placed these bodies here – and of the horrors, they might allude to. It also becomes the transitional mark for the film’s final escalation. As the moments have ticked by, viewers have been waiting for the horror, much like the pendulum, to “drop”. And while losing much of its effect decades later, it does drop. As Fabian and Roger attempt to save a man from hanging, both the women are kidnapped and taken to Count Regula’s castle, the men swiftly in tow.
There is a tension that finally begins to take root in the film, one that has been lost thus far through its drawn-out exercise of patience and inevitability. As Fabian and Roger make their way into the castle, it begins to take on a maze-like feel, the men slowly led into different paths, doors closing shut behind them. For the first time since the opening scene, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism feels like a horror film embracing a legacy of horror. There is a history of the genre that reverberates of films that have come before – and films that were still yet to come.
And as the film leans into the legacy of the genre, so too does it its inspiration from Poe. First, it is in the torturous setup for the death of Babette. As Fabian, Lilian and Roger attempt to find away out of the castle, they see Babette strapped to an X shaped structure, water slowly lowing the fixture and releasing the lock that holds her in place. Once the lock snaps free, Babette’s slow descent will crash to the spikes on the floor below her. It speaks once more to the pendulum, slowly lowering its victim to their inevitable and inescapable death. Yet, much like the prisoner in Poe‘s short novel, Babette is saved at the last moment.
As the four now attempts to flee the castle, they are corralled into its heart – and its horrors. Lilian and Roger take in the torture chamber, the bodies of bound and deceased women – twelve to be exact – posed like trophies filling the room. And as horrific at the scene reveals itself, there is an even darker evil afoot. Lilian and Roger discover that they are the descendants of those who originally brought an end to Count Regula, their deaths to be the ultimate end game to his revenge. As Count Regula is risen from the dead by his loyal servant Anatol (Carl Lange), Roger falls to the pit below while Lillian is unveiled to be the thirteenth woman needed for Count Regula’s immortality.
As the film moves to its conclusion, it leans once again into Poe, though more precisely than before. Roger awakens to find himself strapped to the cobblestone floor of the pit. Much like the Spanish prisoner in the short, he too looks around the small cell he is bound within, horrific drawings on every inch of the walls. It doesn’t take long for the razor-sharp pendulum to move from page to screen, its blade slowly descending towards Roger with every swing. And while the rats of Poe‘s story also make an appearance, they are not the saviors of this story. Rather, Roger finds freedom himself, throwing a rock at the pendulum, knocking it off its course, and allowing the blade to slice through his bindings.
It is incredibly tense, Roger’s predicament heightened by the film’s editing of Lilian’s ill-fated attempt to save him. As she runs through the halls, Count Regula’s need to terrify her for the increased potency of the blood, Lillian fills in the patient tension of Roger’s pendulum. Each time we cut back to Roger, the blade is that much closer, and cuts back to Lillian bringing her into a different visual terror. First with the spiders crawling and then with the Pit of Snakes – a fear of Lilian’s introduced early on. As she is driven to madness and Roger to almost certain death, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is driven into new influences.
With the blood of the thirteen women, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism finds influence beyond Poe, embracing vampirism with that of a mad scientist – the latter especially as its release was double featured with The Mad Doctor of Blood Island. Drinking the blood provides immortality, that is after the blood has been properly treated through beakers and tubes. Crosses also can not be in Count Regula’s chamber, their presence detested and powerful enough to impede his work. With this immersion of influences, the supernatural also makes its way into the film, breaking away from the philosophy and horror of Poe and becoming something more. As strong as The Pit and the Pendulum is an inspiration, so too is the desire for The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism to be something more.
Conclusion:y
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is far from the best horror film, especially as it spends most of its time becoming the cinematic pendulum it wants to adapt. Yet, where the film is based on Poe‘s short story, it becomes an entity all its own. And while I have and will continue to say this is far from a good horror film, it’s hard not to acknowledge the possible influences both it and Poe have had on horror film’s of the future. It was hard to watch the film and not think of the Saw movies, specifically Saw 2 with its pit of needles and Saw V with the same pendulum slowly threatening its victim below.
Watch The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism
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