36) Il Boia Scarlatto - "Bloody Pit of Horror" (1965)

"The day of the Crimson Executioner has come."

Director
Domenico Massimo Pupillo (credited as Max Hunter)

Cast
Mickey Hargitay - Travis Anderson
Walter Brandt - Rick
Luisa Baratto - Edith
Ralph Zucker - Dermott

Like the movie House by the Cemetery which I previously reviewed, Bloody Pit of Horror comes to American audiences by way of Italy. But unlike House by the Cemetery, it's a lot more trashy and campy.
This is the second movie from my collection of 50 "cult classics" and B-horror/ thriller movies called Night Screams. I mentioned it in my Anatomy of a Pyscho review.
With scenes bordering on risque, and attempts at humor, alongside scenes of young women nearly allowing themselves to be taken captive and tortured, Bloody Pit of Horror certainly lives up to its namesake. It's bloody and pitiful.
A group of people made up of a writer named Rick, his publisher Daniel, and his secretary Edith, along with a photographer Dermott, and five young female models, stumble upon what they believe is an abandoned castle. The models - a group of young women credited as "the Cover Girls" in the credits - are stereotypically naïve, defenseless, scantly clad, and running deathly close to empty when it comes to the will to fight their assailant.
They decide the castle would be the most ideal location for a photo session for the horror photo novel Rick is working on. It doesn't seem to matter to anyone that they have no permission to be inside this castle, nor do they have any regard for safety.
Little do these people know that a former actor named Travis Anderson has taken up residency inside the castle. And the castle was once the scene of an execution.
The opening takes place in the 17th century where we see a man calling himself the "Crimson Executioner" being put to death by impalement for taking laws into his own hands and torturing otherwise innocent people. They place him in a device similar to an iron maiden - a box with spikes on the interior side of a door. His executioners close him in as he screams. Blood oozes from the bottom of the small coffin-like chamber in an attempt to set the horrific mood.
As the crew explores the castle, they find an assistant of Anderson's who takes them to him.
Anderson immediately tells them they have to leave. But rather than leave the castle they're all trespassing in, they pretty much beg to be allowed to stay.

As Anderson sticks to his demands, Edith walks into the room and once Anderson sees her, he reconsiders. It turns out Edith was once his fiancé. What are the chances, right?
However, he tells them the castle's dungeon is absolutely off limits. And as expected, they completely ignore his one rule and hold their photo session in the dungeon with these young, gorgeous models  lasciviously draped over torture devices dating back centuries.
Obviously, this makes Anderson mad. He dawns the mask and costume of the Crimson Executioner, claiming that he's the new embodiment, and he gets to work rather quickly.
Anderson picks them off one by one in the most harshest way he can, until only two remain.
The first to die, dies "accidentally" when a torture device "fails" during a photo shoot.
Rather than react the way anyone would when someone dies in such a gruesome manner, the crew is nonchalant about it. They merely shift their focus on finishing the photo session. Their reaction is more on par with the way a person would act if their car battery died. It sucks but there's still stuff to do.
"Don't tell the girls. They'll just panic," one of the group members says.
When it appears that the accident may actually have been intentional at the hands of an unknown assailant, their attitude doesn't change much. Needless to say, the acting is terrible. The lines were dubbed in English, but that's still no excuse.
Later, one of the girls gets stuck in a device that looks like a huge spider's web with trip wires extended between the web and a door. These wires are attached to several harpoons that'll fire at the slightest touch or vibration. On top of that, a mechanical spider with poison on its mandibles is slowly approaching the trapped model. It could easily be a scene straight from the early Batman series from the 60s. If the Joker had been standing next to her, dastardly explaining his plot to her rescuers, just as she did, he wouldn't be out of place.
How this girl wound up in the web is a mystery. But she explains the situation when two others find her and attempt to a rescue.
Mickey Hargitay as Anderson really gets wild with his character, who's obsessed with his body image, and hell bent on torturing these women for their "sins" as cruelly as he can. He's animated in his actions. His dubbing is rather monotone and lacking appropriate inflection. That's common in early film dubs.
The movie relies much more on it leaning very close to an autoerotic picture without crossing the line into something even partially x-rated, then it does on story.
But it doesn't hold back in the horror with impaling, burning, slashing, cutting, stretching, and screaming.
For 1965 standards, I'm guessing this is hardcore for a mainstream film - even one from Italy.
This isn't the only time director Domenico Pupillo used a scary castle as a backdrop for a horror movie. His 1965 film Terror-Creatures from the Grave about an attorney settling an estate belonging to a deceased client is also set inside a castle.
This movie utilizes the fear of pain, domination, captivity, and stage blood to scare the audience.
Otherwise, it has nothing else going for it. It's meant for screams, cringe worthy torture scenes, twitchy laughter, and helpless young women at the mercy of a muscular, overpowering, demented male executioner. It reminds me of the types of stories you'd read in a classic EC horror comic - Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror. It's just plain schlock.
For reasons unknown, the movie concludes with unnecessary exposition as it explains what the audience just saw moments ago. Fans of obscure B-horror might get something out of this movie. Otherwise, it's worth passing up.