The Snakepit and the Pendulum (1967)

We open on a condemned man, his facial features hidden behind a large golden mask full of spikes. And right away, we can’t help but notice this strange and somewhat grotesque mask resembles the one nailed onto Barbara Steele’s face in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (alias La maschera del demonio, 1960), meaning it's probably there for a reason.

And as we ponder as to what that diabolical reason could be, the guards remove the prisoner from his cell and march him out into a courtyard, where we spy a hooded, ax-wielding executioner waiting patiently. But this man is apparently just window dressing as we next spy the condemned prisoner being secured hand and foot to four separate horses heading in four equally and opposite directions.

Obviously about to be drawn and quartered, we barely have time to consider what this prisoner did to deserve such a grisly fate before we crash-cut to two observers; both with a keen interest in these proceedings. One of them is the judge who passed sentence on the condemned, while the other is the star witness, whose testimony damned our doomed prisoner to this current predicament.

Here, they also reveal the man about to be executed rather gruesomely is (and soon to be was) the evil Count Regula, who apparently kidnapped and killed 12 young girls at his secluded castle for some nefarious purpose. And the witness was to be the 13th victim before she escaped and brought the hammer of justice down on our mad villain.

Now that it’s almost all over, the judge once again thanks the girl; for without her testimony, they would’ve never caught Regula and proudly proclaims his reign of terror is now officially over. But the witness takes no comfort from this macabre ending, and ominously fears this will only be the beginning of something even worse.

Then, with the wave of the executioner’s axe, the horses are whipped, the ropes pull taught, and then -- well, and then we quickly jump ahead in time, where a singing minstrel recounts the bloody tale of Count Regula and his horrible deeds, complete with a lurid slide-show. Well, sort of. See, he has explicit paintings of the 12 murders and the eventual execution of the killer.

A small crowd has gathered around to hear these profane musings; but when the minstrel spots a certain man riding by on his buggy, the last few verses are aborted and the show suddenly comes to an abrupt end. 

Later, the peg-legged minstrel follows this stranger for a spell, giving the foley-man a workout until finally catching up to his quarry -- but he only begs pardon and asks for the man’s name. 

Identifying himself as Roger von Elise (Barker), the minstrel hands over a sealed envelope and a promise that all the answers to the man’s clouded past can be found inside. Curious, before breaking the wax seal, Roger notices the stamp bears a strong resemblance to his own crest. 

Inside, he finds an invitation to Castle Andeline at the behest of Count Regula. (But isn’t he dead?) Confused, when Roger asks the minstrel who really sent it, he’s startled to realize while his nose was in the letter, the man mysteriously vanished without a trace. Now intrigued, Roger informs his law partner that he’ll be heading out of town for a while.

We then cut to another town, where the same minstrel is at again, spreading the nefarious legend of the dreaded Count Regula, until spotting a lovely young woman and her chambermaid watching him out of a hotel window. Recognizing them, he then pulls another, similarly sealed envelope from his breast pocket.

We then crash-cut again to Roger’s coach as it races across the countryside. Once they stop at the next town to feed and water the horses, the weary traveler asks around for directions to Castle Andeline but the locals quickly shy away at the mere mention of this domain. (Uh-oh. Never a good sign.) The few that are willing to talk only confirm that Andeline is a cursed and evil place, and how the man who sent him that invitation has been dead for over 35-years.

Then his search is interrupted when a solemn religious procession marches past, led by a monk bearing a large wooden cross. A local girl tells an inquiring Roger it's a recurring ritual to help keep evil spirits away. She also adds the lead monk is the only one who knows the way to Andeline.

Quickly catching up with the processional, Roger brings it to a crashing halt to ask for directions. The monk obliges, but notes the castle he seeks is in ruins, and then punctuates the conversation with a warning, telling the young man to stay away from that profane place because a great danger awaits him there.

Here, another priest steps in, who pokes fun at the local zealots and shoos them on as he introduces himself as Father Fabian (Medar). He then asks Roger if he’s really headed to Castle Andeline? He is, and Fabian finds this strange because that’s also where the Baroness Lillian von Brabaut (Dor) and her maid, Babette (Rucker), are headed. He then points out the two ladies in question as they ride by in their own carriage and depart for Andeline -- and yes, we recognize these are the same two women the minstrel was interested in during that last scene.

Saying he has a baptism to perform in the next town, Fabian manages to con a ride with Roger. (With his uncouth demeanor, if you get a sense that this priest isn’t what he appears to be I would say trust your gut on this one.) But several miles outside of town, seven riders dressed in black thunder past them. Fabian refers to this mob as the Seven Deadly Sins and fears they may be robbers setting up an ambush down the road. 

Then, as the carriage draws closer to Regula’s old haunts, we also notice the slow deterioration of the countryside from lush farmland to a hellish landscape of swirling fog and dead trees.

Turns out Fabian was right about those bandits, too, but they weren’t after them. No. They were after the Baroness. 

Luckily, they catch up in time and Roger and Fabian are able to run them off -- but not before they kill the driver of the women’s coach. Not to worry. Since they’re all headed to the same place, Roger offers the services of his carriage. And so, their journey continues.

But as the sun sets and the fog grows thicker, the road keeps getting worse and so does the scenery! Here, the coachman (Lange) starts noticing several dismembered body parts littered about the tree branches! 

Then another tree is adorned by three ravens, who call him out by name, which causes the rattled driver to rein in the horses and abandon the coach on foot.

Wanting to know why they stopped, the passengers spill out. (Note how all the body parts are now gone.) Rounding up the terrified driver, he begs them all to just turn back; seems that seeing three ravens together on Good Friday is a bad omen in these parts. But Roger doesn’t want to hear this superstitious nonsense and orders the man to mount up, which the poor guy does under extreme protest.

But as the trip continues, as the passengers complain about how rough the road is getting, Father Fabian claims it must be tree roots. 

However, when we cut outside, we see its not tree roots at all but dozens of dead bodies that the coach is bouncing over! Now, the driver doesn’t see this either because he’s too busy looking at the multitude of cadavers hanging from the trees. 

All of this proves too much for this poor soul, who succumbs to an acute and very fatal heart attack and tumbles off the coach. (Again, the written word does not do this sequence proper justice.)

With no one at the reins, the horses bolt, shaking-up the passengers rather violently. But after Roger pulls a nice Yakima Kanutt-inspired maneuver, he manages to work his way outside and stops the runaway coach. He then gets a good look at the morbid scenery.

Revolted by what he sees -- the entire forest is filled with dead bodies, hanging from the trees or littering the road -- Roger asks Fabian to join him but orders the women to stay inside. One of the victims appears to be still alive. But when the men rush to cut him down, Roger notices several of the hanged men are dressed like the bandits who tried to rob Lillian. But upon closer inspection, they are nothing but skeletons.

Then, while the men are distracted, from out of the fog, a mysterious stranger slinks to the coach and steals it -- with the women still inside!

Whipping the horses on, they disappear into the mist, leaving the men behind. They give chase on foot, but quickly lose their way in the damnable fog until they hear a bell ringing. This leads them to a cemetery, where all the gravestones read Regula, and then a metal gate creaks open, revealing the ruins of Castle Andeline. (Man, this is some genuinely creepy stuff.)

Entering through the gate, a cellar door opens up revealing a set of stairs. When Roger and Fabian enter and descend, the spiked door -- that looks like the maw and teeth of some great beast -- slams shut behind them; and so, in a sense, it devours these two intruders, now trapped, where who knows what horror awaits them inside…

I honestly don’t know how much of a limb I am venturing out onto when I say I think Harald Reinl might be one of the most underappreciated figures when it comes to genre cinema. I mean, if you know, you know. But my point is I don’t think enough of you do. Know. And so, here we are. Let's get to educating. The good and the bad.

“Would he have worked inside the American studio system of the 1930s and ‘40s, director Harald Reinl would have hardly left an impact on film history, since many of his films were series films; nearly all are genre pieces as diverse as sentimental films, war films, westerns, crime and murder mysteries, straight horror and even documentaries; and on a budgetary level, they would be considered B-movies (compared to Hollywood's A-budgets that is),” said Mike Harberfeiner for [re] Search My Trash (February, 2006).

“However, in Germany, where Reinl made most of his films, there is no distinction between As and Bs; films are merely judged by the money they make at the box-office. And in Germany, for a while in the 1960s, Reinl's films reigned supreme, effortlessly outdoing Hollywood's A-output.”

Born in 1908 in Bad Ishcl, Austria, as he grew older tucked up in the Austrian Alps, Reinl became a very proficient skier, competing in downhill racing and ski-jumping competitions. And in this capacity he had his first brush with filmmaking, serving as a stunt double for none other than Leni Riefenstahl in Arnold Fanck’s Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (alias Storm Over Mont Blanc, 1930), an adventurous, sudsy melodrama by most accounts, where he doubled all of her skiing scenes. He would do the same for the actress in Der Weisse Rausch (alias The White Flame, 1931).

And while he would serve as an assistant director on another alpine adventure, Abenteuer im Engadin (alias Slalom, 1932), Reinl sort of disappeared from the scene for a few years, earning a law degree. But he soon abandoned this profession and opened a ski school in France.

Meanwhile, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany, Riefenstahl was tagged as Adolf Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, which resulted in the notorious propaganda piece Triumph of the Will (alias Triumph des Willens, 1935). Here, Riefenstahl leveraged this influence to form her own independent production company, starting a long running feud with Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. And her first project was the sprawling epic Tiefland (alias Lowlands, 1954), another mountainside melodrama, which was conceived at the dawn of World War II and would not be completed until, essentially, the war ended in Hitler’s defeat.

Leni Riefenstahl. 

Shooting on the film began in Spain in late 1940, but as the tides of the war changed, the production soon retreated back to Germany. Plagued by constant delays, air raids, and cost overruns, as the legend goes, the film officially wrapped a mere two weeks before Germany officially surrendered. The incomplete film was seized by the Allies and wouldn’t be returned for several years, explaining why the film wasn’t released until 1954. And it was lucky to be released at all.

For while some saw the film as a political allegory against fascism, where the heroine, played by Riefenstahl, is duped by the power of a sadistic marquis, recovered documents later revealed that Riefenstahl selected the gypsy extras for the film from a concentration camp near Salzburg, with the majority of them later perishing at the Auschwitz extermination camp, leaving an indelible stain on the whole thing.

Thus, it’s no real surprise that Riefenstahl's career as a filmmaker never really recovered in post-war Europe. But Reinl’s career, in stark contrast, was about to take off. Riefenstahl had hired Reinl as an assistant director on Tiefland to stage the skiing scenes. And in 1949, he directed his first feature Bergkristall (alias Crystal Mountain, 1949), which officially ushered in the Heimatfilm, a new genre which Harberfeiner described as “a conservative rural melodrama or comedy often set in mountainous regions that is very specific to German speaking countries of the post-war era.”

The film was a huge hit, which resulted in Reinl making about a half-dozen more in the same vein, including Rosen-Resli (alias Rose-Girl Resli, 1949), which was the first time he worked with actress Karin Dor.

Karin Dor.  

Born Kätherose Derr in 1938, the German actress started as an extra. She caught the eye of director Arthur Rabenalt during the production of Der Letzte Walzer (alias The Last Waltz, 1953), who then recommended Dor to Reinl for Rosen-Resli. Reinl was equally smitten by the doe-eyed actress and would keep on casting her in his films. And even though he was 30 years her senior, the two would become married in 1954 until their divorce in 1968.

Meanwhile, in 1958 Dor starred in Fritz Umgelter’s erotic sex farce Mit Eva fing die Sünde an (alias Sin Began with Eve, 1958). The film would have a bit of a notorious release in the United States as The Bellboy and the Playgirls (1962), which included additional color and 3D inserts of Playboy Playmate June Wilkinson in the nude shot by a young Francis Ford Coppola with an assist from Jack Hill for producer Harry Ross -- right before the both of them started working for Roger Corman.

Reinl, meanwhile, would try to stretch his legs a bit and venture into other genres, but he always retreated back to the relative box office safety of the Heimatfilms. But that was about to change thanks to a second British Invasion.

In a previous review of Alfred Voher’s The College Girl Murders (alias Der Mönch mit der Peitsche, 1967), we took a deep dive into the history of prolific British mystery writer Edgar Wallace, pointing out how his “salaciously violent and violently salacious stories were a decadently perfect fit for pre-Nazi Germany.” And always strapped for cash, Wallace eagerly signed off on the German film adaptations of The Unknown (as Der große Unbekannte, 1927) and The Crimson Circle (as Der rote Kreis, 1929).

Several other Teutonic adaptations followed but it all came to a premature end with E.W. Emo's Der Doppelgänger (alias The Doppelgänger, 1934), when the rise of Hitler and National Socialism made this type of foreign material strictly verboten. But!

Turns out the Germans weren’t quite done with Wallace yet. For as we moved into the 1950s, there was a sudden surge in popularity for these types of pulp crime thrillers and adventure yarns in Europe, especially in Italy, with their gialli (yellow) paperbacks, and West Germany and their taschenkrimis -- "pocket-sized crime novels.”

And with the market flooded with foreign films tapping the same vein, after screening Guy Hamilton’s The Ringer (1952), based on another Wallace story, Walfried Barthel, the head of Constantin Film, a Frankfurt based distribution company, hoping to cash in on these pulp influences, sent out feelers to several studios, trying to drum up some interest in adapting the westerns of Karl May, the espionage tales of Jerry Cotten, or the criminal capers of Edgar Wallace. The only nibble they got was from the Dutch-based Rialto Films, who agreed to take a gamble with Constantin on an adaptation of Wallace’s The Fellowship of the Frog.

To direct Der Frosch mit der Maske (alias The Face of the Frog, 1959), the newly minted Constantin-Rialto turned to the very bankable Reinl. And with a script by Egon Eis and Joachim Bartsch, Reinl unleashed a totally bonkers tale of a masked super-criminal and his gang of thugs, who terrorize and loot London while staying one step ahead of Scotland Yard.

Harald Reinl. 

Said Harberfeiner, “Reinl compensated for the film's shortcomings (German landscapes and actors all desperately trying to look British -- and often failing), an over-convoluted plot, and a relative lack of logic in the script, with an incredible feeling for eerie atmosphere, a directorial overview to make the most of what he's got, and an infectious love for the genre.”

Thus, with Reinl’s efforts, Constantin-Rialto's cinematic risk soon paid off as the film was a smashing success, which officially ushered in the era of another brand new genre: the Kriminalfilm -- or krimi for short. And so, under the guiding hand of producers Preben Phillipsen and Horst Wendlandt, directors Reinl and Voher, these krimis flourished throughout the 1960s, where, according to Louis Pal (Edgar Wallace: A Career in Crime), "Femme fatales, gamblers, and other denizens of the underworld -- stooges, squealers, informers and the like -- shared screen time with heirs and heiresses, insane relatives, mad scientists, psychos, criminal masterminds and (other) worse (elements of horror) in the blurred borders of a corrupt society."

Reinl would also insert his wife into the production as the leading lady. “If the German krimi ever had a female face, it must have been Karin Dor's,” explained Harberfeiner. “Her naive, innocent looks, her subdued eroticism, and her ability to deliver a trademark wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights facial expression at the drop of a hat were all perfect for the somewhat weird, somewhat trashy, but immensely successful and often very funny German krimis of the 1960s and brought her success throughout Europe.”

From 1959 to 1972, with 32 films in-between, Constantin-Rialto seldom strayed from their formula. They were almost always set in England; the bad guys were always opposed by a rotating gallery of detectives from Scotland Yard (usually played by Joachim Fuchsberger) and their odious comedy relief (usually Eddie Arrent, who was genuinely funny, and when it wasn’t him the film suffered for it); all under the watchful eye of the bumbling chief inspector, Sir John (usually played by Siegfried Schürenberg, who appeared as the same character in 13 of these things), and his ever-revolving pool of perky secretaries.

And these investigators would then try to unravel the serpentine schemes of the master villain to save some hapless heroine from an inheritance grab, being sold off to a white slavers, or getting her head chopped off by some guy dressed in a gorilla costume -- and sometimes, sometimes it was a combination of all the above. Add all of that with an international cast, mindless violence, some eye-popping production design, a swingin' horn heavy soundtrack, more mindless violence, deep shadows, wild camera angles, and a staggering body count by film's end, once you're exposed to this insanity, there’s no turning back.

As I said in The College Girl Murders review, these krimis played out “like an old Republic serial, mixed with the absurdity of a Gilligan's Island coconut-to-the-cranium induced fever dream sequence, with the overall look and feel and vibe of the old Batman TV show.” And it worked. Believe me.

Thus, Reinl added his flourishing touch to The Terrible People (alias Die Bande des Schreckens, 1960), The Forger of London (alias Der Fälscher von London, 1961), The White Spider (alias Die weiße Spinne, 1963), Room 13 (alias Zimmer 13, 1964) and The Sinister Monk (alias Der unheimliche Mönch, 1965).

Voher, meanwhile, whose career also deserves a boost, would put his own personal touch on Dead Eyes of London (alias Die toten Augen von London, 1961), The Door with Seven Locks (alias Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern, 1962), The Inn on the River (alias Das Gasthaus an der Themse, 1962), The Hunchback of Soho (alias Der Bucklige von Soho, 1966), Creature with the Blue Hand (alias Die blaue Hand, 1967), The Horror of Blackwood Castle (alias Der Hund von Blackwood Castle, 1968), and my personal favorite of the whole lot, Gorilla Gang (alias The Gorilla of Soho, alias Der Gorilla von Soho, 1968), where criminals dressed up in gorilla costumes use a submarine to kidnap and drown people as part of an insurance scam, as you do.

These profitable efforts also spawned dozens of imitators, who had to look elsewhere for inspiration since the studio had locked up the exclusive rights to adapt Wallace's books, explaining why most knock-offs were based on the mysteries of Wallace’s son, Bryan Edgar Wallace, hoping no one would notice.

But they always paled in comparison and lacked the true delirium of the Constantin-Rialto series -- even when they pilfered some of their talent, as Reinl also directed the killer mothballs in The Carpet of Horror (alias Der Teppich des Grauens, 1962) for Época Films; and one of my favorites of all the knock-offs, The Strangler of Blackmoore Castle (alias Der Würger von Schloß Blackmoor, 1963), for CCC Filmkunst -- both of which also starred Dor.

Reinl would also take over Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, who had recently resurrected the arch-villain in The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (alias Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse, 1960) in response to the popularity of the Constantin-Rialto series. The character had first appeared in Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (alias Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, 1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) before the filmmaker fled Germany and the Nazis in 1934, and who wouldn’t return until the late 1950s.

Reinl took over with The Return of Dr. Mabuse (alias Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse, 1961), where the criminal mastermind brainwashes prison inmates into committing crimes on his behalf, and The Invisible Horror (alias Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse, 1962), where the villain gets his hands on an invention that can turn his goon squad invisible. Mayhem ensues.

In front of the camera, Wolfgang Priess would play Dr. Mabuse. Opposing him would be FBI agent Joe Como, on loan to the German authorities, played by Lex Barker. Barker was an American actor probably best known for replacing Johnny Weismuller as Tarzan in six features, starting with Tarzan’s Magic Fountain (1949) and ending with Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953). (Barker, in turn, would then be replaced by Gordon Scott as the King of the Jungle.)

And while Barker would have a moderately successful career in Hollywood, he never really could break out of the Bs with a few standout roles in Return of the Badmen (1948), The Price of Fear (1956) and The Deerslayer (1957). He then moved (or fled) to Europe after a particularly nasty divorce from his third wife, Lana Turner -- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Peyton Place (1957) -- where Turner (allegedly) ran him out of their house at gunpoint for (allegedly) molesting her 13 year old daughter from a previous marriage.

Hoping for a career boost with this change of scenery, things got off to a solid start in Italy, where Barker played Anita Ekberg’s fiance in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) before migrating to West Germany, where he found a ton of success, starting with those Dr Mabuse films.

Reinl and Barker would then team up again for a string of westerns based on the books of Karl May, where Barker played a frontiersman named Shatterhand, who teamed up with his Apache friend Winnetou, played by Pierre Brice. Starting with The Treasure of Silver Lake (alias Der Schatz im Silbersee, 1962), our two heroes thwart a gang of murderous outlaws from invading the Apache homeland to find a legendary treasure. This Sauerkraut Western, the first ever produced by West Germany, would go over even better with audiences than the krimis, drawing in some 3 million ticket buyers.

In the follow up feature, Winnetou (1963), we kinda get an origin story of how these two became blood brothers as they first teamed up to prevent a war between an encroaching railroad and the Apaches. In Last of the Renegades (alias Winnetou 2, 1964), it was more of the same with an oil barren stirring things up this time. And in Winnetou: The Last Shot (alias Winnetou 3), once again someone is trying to start a range war by framing Winnetou for murder, leaving it to Shatterhand to prove his innocence and prevent yet another massacre. And finally, in The Valley of Death (alias Winnetou und Shatterhand im Tal der Toten, 1968), the pair would solve the mysterious disappearance of an army gold shipment.

Of course, when espionage, intrigue, and spy shenanigans became a thing after the release of Dr. No (1962), these elements started leeching into Reinl’s output, too. Dor herself would appear as the femme fatale Helga Brandt in the Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967).  

Dor, Donald Pleasence, Mia Hama (You Only Live Twice, 1967). 

In 1968, Reinl teamed up with another American Ex-Pat, George Nader, of Robot Monster (1953) infamy, for a string of thrillers centered around FBI agent Jerry Cotton (Nader), who had fled to Europe after being outed by the tabloids for being gay. (A rather disheartening story as Universal kinda threw him under the bus to protect Rock Hudson.)

Death in a Red Jaguar (alias Der Tod im roten Jaguar, 1968) sees Cotton brought in to solve a series of baffling murders. In Death and Diamonds (alias Dynamit in grüner Seide, 1968), Cotton must thwart a diamond heist, which culminates in a wild chase scene. And then in Dead Body on Broadway (1969), Cotton is out to avenge a fellow FBI agent killed in a massive gold robbery -- only it turns out that agent might’ve been in on it the whole time. 

Reinl would also direct the last entry in the totally demented Kommisar X series, Tiger Gang (alias Kommissar X jagt die roten Tiger, 1971), with Tony Kendall and Brad Harris, where our heroes head to Pakistan to break up a drug smuggling operation. (And I really need to do a retrospective on the Kommisar X series someday. Those things are a riot.)

Then, as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, Reinl kinda switched gears and hitched his director’s chair onto Eric von Däniken’s bandwagon and his outré theories on lost civilizations and the influence of ancient extraterrestrial astronauts.

Said Däniken, “There is something inconsistent about our past … Why are the world’s sacred books full of descriptions of gods who came down from the sky in fiery chariots and who always promised to return? How could ancient Sanskrit text contain an account which can only be of a journey in a spaceship, complete with a graphic description of the force of gravity? I want to start people thinking, get facts examined anew.”

Reinl would direct the feature documentary based on Daniken’s book Chariots of the Gods (1970), which would earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary in 1971 but would lose to Woodstock (1970). The film was then cannibalized and dubbed over by Alan Landsburg for a TV special, In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973), with added narration by Rod Serling. This was followed up with In Search of Ancient Mysteries (1974), also hosted by Serling, which presented further evidence of ancient aliens.

The Press-Telegram (December 31, 1972). 

Both specials would serve as backdoor pilots for the series In Search of… (1976-1982), with Leonard Nimoy stepping in for Serling, who died in 1975. Each week the series explored “lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, myths and monsters, missing persons, magic and witchcraft, and unexplained phenomena” and I was glued to the TV for every episode when it first aired.

The docu-series would also spin off with a feature documentary The Outer Space Connection (1975); and Reinl and Däniken would keep milking the ancient astronaut angle with Mysteries of the Gods (1976), hosted by another Star Trek alum, William Shatner, based on Däniken’s follow up book, Miracle of the Gods.

The Tampa Tribune (March 10, 1977). 

“The ideas in the film are of some interest,” said Tom Setzer for The Abilene Reporter-News (May 7, 1977). “Among them are the existence of alien beings with superior intelligence in outer space, the position that these beings have visited our planet centuries ago and may have sparked the drive towards mankind’s leap to civilization, and primarily that certain individuals are being groomed to make contact with these same aliens. Shatner interviews many ‘experts’ in the field of alien research throughout the film and cites scientific proof to support these theories. You can probably take or leave this ‘scientific proof.’ But the ideas are interesting if the viewer has an open mind. It’s that kind of film.”

And yet, while Chariots of the Gods would earn an Oscar nomination, Mysteries of the Gods would earn audiences a free “How To Guide" if they ever ran into an alien, ancient or otherwise.

Now, in the middle of all of this, Reinl would make, to my knowledge, his one and only true horror film for Constantin. It would be based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum in the same way Roger Corman’s was. As a wise (and wisecracking) robot once said, “Based on that they’re both in English” -- only this one would be in German, Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (1967), which translates as The Snakepit and the Pendulum.

The film would be produced by Erwin Gitt, who had helmed several of those krimis, including The Black Abbot (alias Der schwarze Abt, 1963), Room 13, The Horror of Blackwood Castle, and most of those Reinl Shatterhand and Winnetou westerns, who then stuck around for two more after Reinl left -- Winnetou and the Crossbreed (alias Winnetou und das Halbblut Apanatschi, 1966) and Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand (alias Winnetou and His Friend Old Firehand, 1966), where Rod Cameron subbed in for the departed Barker.

Speaking of Barker, he would star in Reinl's film as the hero, while Dor, of course, would play the damsel in distress. But the real casting coup was landing Christopher Lee as the villainous Count Regula -- though, to be fair, he’s barely in the film and doesn’t technically show up until we’re well into the final act.

Luckily for the audience, Reinl had an ace up his sleeve to drive the plot as Roger and Fabian enter Castle Andeline, where, after a few more phantom doors open and close, they’re herded into a large chamber filled with the strange murals depicting all kinds of torture and body-dismemberment painted on the walls. 

Then, another door opens allowing our mysterious coach-thief to join the party. And here, Reinl shows his winning hand as this cadaverous man introduces himself as Anatol (Lange), claiming he is the deceased Count Regula’s trusted servant.

But formal introductions be damned, Roger wants to know what happened to Lillian and Babette. Suddenly, music fills the chamber and Anatol opens yet another door, revealing a room where Lillian is not only unharmed but playing an clavichord. 

When Anatol announces they have guests, the girl doesn’t seem to recognize them. Obviously in some kind of trance, she welcomes Roger and Fabian to her castle; and in her deluded state, she mistakes a snake as a gift of jewelry.

Now, before Roger tears him apart, Anatol admits that he drugged Lillian after abducting her to calm her down. And when a nervous Babette arrives with drinks for everyone, she silently warns Roger not to drink the wine before “accidentally” spilling Fabian's glass onto the table. 

Then, as the liquid eats through the wood like the acid it obviously is, a startled Fabian rips off his preacher’s tunic and reveals his true profession as a dastardly highwayman. (I knew it!).

Apparently, he had meant to rob them all before the creepy butler got involved. Now, pulling his two flint pistols, he tries to bargain with Anatol but this goes nowhere as the servant takes Roger’s cup with the same deadly liquid, shot-guns it -- and then laughs if off as he herds Babette out of the room, the heavy door slamming shut behind them. (And we, as an audience, ask, Okay ... What the hell’s going on here?!)

Meanwhile, as Fabian thunders off down another passage, with the effects of the drug wearing off, Roger tries to snap Lillian out of her stupor. When she comes to her senses, the two take in one of Regula’s macabre murals depicting the horrible mutilation murders of those 12 virgins. Strangely enough, it’s the two intact characters in the painting that draws their attention the most. And while they resemble the judge and the star witness -- from way back at the beginning, remember? -- the figures also bear more than a passing resemblance to Roger and Lillian.

But before they can take a closer look, Fabian returns in a dither, blathering that something awful is happening to Babette. He then leads them to the locked door of a small chamber. 

Inside, Babette is lashed to the crossbeams of some nefarious contraption held upright by a single chain. Further inspection sees water slowly dripping into a bucket, where the slow and deliberate increase in weight will eventually release the chain and trigger the deathtrap, causing the helpless girl to fall onto a bed of spikes!

Luckily for Babette, after a few tense moments, Roger and Fabian manage to break down the door and save her before she goes splat. But after releasing the girl, the group is then herded deeper into the castle, where the hallways quickly become lined with skulls.

Her nerves shattered already, Babette turns back and flees in terror. Fabian goes after her, but Anatol catches Babette first and tries to strangle her. But Fabian catches up and threatens to shoot. 

Again, Anatol only laughs at the bandit after releasing the girl ---even after Fabian fires both pistols at his heart. 

His aim is true, but both bullet holes quickly heal themselves as Anatol sneers, saying, "You can’t hurt me. I’ve been dead for years." With that revelation, Fabian and Babette run away -- in opposite directions because of course they did.

Meanwhile, Roger and Lillian turn another corner and find some vultures doing a number on some fetid corpse. (Man, this place is better than Disneyland!) When Fabian returns, a voice calls to them from another chamber: the actual torture chamber where Regula did his dirty deeds; but the strange thing is, the murdered virgins are still in there and the corpses are looking mighty pristine for being dead for 35 years.

Anatol is there, too, waiting for them, and reveals a glass sarcophagus. Inside are the severed remains of the late Count Regula, who left his servant orders to resurrect him on this Good Friday. And being a good servant, Anatol slits his wrist and bleeds, well, what used to be blood on the glass judging by the ichor's greenish hue. 

But something isn’t quite right; he senses something holy in the room, meaning somebody is probably wearing a crucifix. Lillian had one -- stress on the had, because Fabian stole it at some point. 

When Anatol orders the bandit to leave or face the consequences, right on cue, another door opens by itself and the cowardly Fabian beats feet -- only to find himself trapped in a small cell. And he isn't alone: the body of the minstrel is in there with him.

With the crucifix gone, Anatol continues the blood rite; and after the corpse slowly snaps itself back together, the man rises from the coffin and removes the mask, allowing us to finally get a look at Count Frederick Regula (Lee).

Turns out the Count was / is an alchemist who discovered the secret of immortality; and since the formula involves a massive amount of virginal blood explains away all the dead bodies lying around. But what really makes the elixir cook is that the women must be in a highly frightened state before the formula will be effective. (That’s why he tortured them first.)

But needing the blood of a thirteenth virgin to complete the formula and gain full immortality, when the last victim escaped his clutches way back when, Regula managed to ingest some of the incomplete batch before he was caught and put to death, allowing him to be resurrected for a short spell to complete his work. 

Nodding to Anatol, the Count reveals an hourglass and flips it over; apparently, Regula has that much time to find another virgin and gain immortality; and if he fails, the Count takes a permanent dirt-nap.

As we've already guessed, Regula then reveals that the judge who sentenced him to death was Roger’s real father, and the victim who escaped was Lillian's mother. (For the record, the judge and the witness were also played by a barely disguised Barker and Dor). Vowing vengeance on everyone involved with his trial and execution (-- including their families), Anatol obeyed this last request and informs his master that every last one of them, their entire bloodline, is dead -- except for these two.

Editor’s note: Now, I believe this explains away the multitude of dead bodies scattered around the castle and all those back in the forest. Judging by the sheer volume, Anatol must’ve been a busy guy. But he got sloppy and was caught killing someone and hanged for it. But he also took some of the Count’s elixir, which explains his zombie-like state and the neck brace he wears.

In a case of conniving symmetry, Regula then announces Lillian has been pegged to be the 13th virginal sacrifice. When Roger protests, he’s dumped down a trapdoor. Anatol then draws a knife and herds the girl toward an iron maiden until his master stops him, saying it’s not enough. The girl must be absolutely terrified. 

And so, to help work her into a righteous tizzy, they tie Roger to the floor below a massive swinging pendulum blade and allow her to watch as it slowly lowers and threatens to chop our hero in half. They even let her escape, to try and help him, but this was just another ruse so Anatol can run her through a few more morbid features of Castle Andeline.

Meanwhile, as the pendulum drops ever closer to Roger, Lillian runs into more dead bodies, vultures, spiders, scorpions and lizards; and in an attempt to get away from them, she runs across a narrow catwalk, but the door at the other end won’t budge. 

From above, Anatol lowers a light into the pit below her, revealing a few more bodies and a bunch of deadly snakes; he then throws another switch, causing the catwalk to withdraw into the wall.

Trapped, Lillian pounds on the door as her foothold grows smaller and smaller, and then faints as the catwalk completely disappears from underneath her -- but the door opens right before she falls as Anatol catches her.

Back under the deadly pendulum, Roger manages to free himself by knocking the blade off course by throwing a rock at it. (Too late. I already called No way!) Fabian has also managed to escape his cell rather deftly given the circumstances, and they both head back to the main torture chamber to rescue Lillian. (Meanwhile, whatever happened to Babette? No. I'm asking you!)

But they might already be too late as Regula’s chemistry set is all a boil ‘n’ bubble and Lillian is finally ready for her unwilling donation. 

Then, just as Regula orders Anatol to slit her jugular to get the blood they need, Roger storms in, who orders them to stop. But the always prepared Regula throws a switch, which drops a handy portcullis between them.

Thus, with eternal victory within his grasp, Regula is about to gloat until Anatol points out that his chemicals have all but petered out. Why? Because Roger has Lillian’s crucifix, which has rendered the evil equipment powerless.

With the hourglass almost empty, Regula and Anatol writhe in pain at the sight of the cross. Here, when Regula pleads with Roger to get rid of it, he gladly obliges by tossing the necklace onto the chemistry set, which causes it to explode!

With their time up, both Regula and Anatol keel over and disintegrate (-- the twelve victims also turn into skeletons). With the villains vanquished, Roger manages to get to Lillian but Andeline is angrily coming apart at the seams and they barely manage to escape before it completely collapses. 

Well, maybe, as I'm not really sure if they did escape as their was a huge implosion, a lot of debris, smoke and dust, which then evaporates away, leaving Roger and Lillian standing amongst the castle ruins unharmed, leaving Roger to postulate if this all wasn't some kind of nightmare.  

Either way, they're free from Regula's curse and happily find Fabian and Babette safe, sound, and waiting for them outside. Then, they all pile into the nearest carriage and leave this profane and evil place far behind them. Commence to snogging, and roll credits.

There's an apocryphal story about Bram Stoker that purports the author once consumed a batch of bad shellfish, which in turn made him violently ill, which then induced a fever dream, whose tenants Stoker would later claim served as the basis for his novel Dracula. Is this true? Who can say. But it does make you kinda wonder what rancid thing Reinl ate before concocting up this whopper of a horror tale. 

Now, it probably should be noted that those Constantin-Rialto krimis were also a huge hit in Italy, where their influence on the body count films of Mario Bava and Dario Argento cannot be underestimated. 

However, as the 1960s progressed, as the Italian bred giallo evolved alongside the krimis, influences started to cross-pollinate something fierce as Bava’s color gels and lighting schemes in things like Hercules in the Haunted World (alias Ercole al centro della terra, 1961), The Whip and the Body (alias What!, alias La frusta e il corpo), Blood and Black Lace (alias 6 donne per l'assassino, 1964) and Kill, Baby, Kill (alias Operazione paura, 1966) have their visual fingerprints all over Reinl’s The Snakepit and the Pendulum, more so than Corman’s Poe cycle.

But again, this worked both ways as Reinl’s westerns showed the genre was viable at the European box-office, leading to the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci. And that’s why I think Reinl should be better known than he is. The man invented two film genres, whose influence inspired several others, which in turn influenced decades of genre films to come.

Thus, it’s too bad he only made one true horror film because, if I’m being honest, while I wouldn't call Reinl's efforts here all that scary, I would definitely say it might be one of the most creepiest movies I have ever seen. In fact, one could even call it downright disturbing in spots. A style that deserved more opportunities to expand on them. As is, it’s a damned good first try.  

The plot’s pretty generic, and the acting mostly adequate -- except for Carl Lange, who was brilliant as Anatol, one of the vilest screen villains encountered in a good long while. And while Lee was the headliner, Lange easily stole the movie right out from underneath him.

At the time, Lee was in between Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) for Hammer, and was in the middle of his Fu Manchu phase, playing the international villain in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), and The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969), which were ghost-financed by Constantin, which might explain his glorified drive-by in Reinl’s film.

But what really sets this film apart and leaves a lasting impression is the production design and set decorations of Will Achtman, Rolf Zehetbauer, and Gabrielle Pellon. Like Daniel Haller’s herculean efforts on an American International budget in Corman’s Poe films, I’ve never seen a spookier gothic castle than Andeline with its myriad passages adorned with skulls, secret chambers filled with all kinds of horrors and fetid remains, and the torture dungeon littered with a dozen naked corpses; and whose massive, nauseating murals of Regula’s dirty deeds were inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgement.

Thus, chock full of many stunning visuals, none were greater than the scene of the carriage approaching the castle, with the deterioration of the landscape, which eventually devolves into the macabre delirium of all the dead bodies and dismembered appendages scattered everywhere. 

And as a point of fact, if the movie has one flaw, and it's nearly fatal, it’s that this phantasmagorical sequence comes too early. For though the rest of the film remains creepy enough, it just cannot top what happened along that fog-enshrouded road.

Another knock on the film is the perfunctory camera work of Ernst Kalinke, who shot a lot of Reinl’s films over the years. But the camera work here is way too subdued and reactive and lacked the dynamic and aggressive urgency seen in the krimis. 

Also distracting was the soundtrack, which never really gelled with the picture and became distracting instead of enhancing. It reminded me a lot of the old Magic Organ 8-track my grandparents had in their Cadillac, which played on a loop for the entire life of the car, and it kinda derails things. I mean, it’s hard to get frightened to the tune of "The Beer Barrel Polka" no matter how dreadful the imagery.

Now, in the film’s defense, the soundtrack is credited to Peter Thomas; but it's uncertain if his original music was replaced for the English dub or not as I had never seen the original German release, only the imported version. But now I have, and the score seemed even worse.

Sadly, the majority of the krimis never made the leap across the Atlantic theatrically and instead made their way onto American television in syndicated packages, showing up on The Late, Late Show marred by jarring cuts, cropped frames, and a lot of wildcat dubbing. (Though I can only imagine what it would've been like stumbling onto them at 3 in the morning.) 

I bought several gray market versions of the series through Sinister Cinema over the years but those were mostly the very same TV prints. And so, I still hold out hope that someone, anyone, will give the Constantin-Rialto Edgar Wallace series a legit boxset or get them streaming somewhere in their original format. (Looking at you, Criterion.) 

FTR: I am fully aware of the massive Tobis / Leonne release, but I’m talking about one that doesn’t require a region-free player as more people really need access to see these things.

Thus, unlike a lot of Reinl’s pictures, The Snakepit and the Pendulum would get a theatrical release in the States. The film was picked up for American distribution by Hemisphere Pictures. Hemisphere was founded by Kane Lynn and Filipino filmmaker Eddie Romero, who first ventured into horror films with Terror is a Man (alias Blood Creature, 1959), which eventually kicked off their successful Blood Island series, teaming up with John Ashley on Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) and Beast of Blood (1970).

Right before he formed Independent International with Al Adamson, Sam Sherman was working freelance for Lynn in Hemisphere’s publicity department. It was Sherman who, sticking with the theme, rebranded The Snakepit and the Pendulum as Blood Demon and paired it up on a double-bill with Mad Doctor of Blood Island in 1969. And it was Sherman who cooked up “The Oath of Green Blood” preamble, where theater and drive-in audiences were instructed to recite the oath and drink the “green blood” provided for free by the theater, which “has been known to passionately affect some people after drinking it, while others experience the feeling of a supernatural conscience entering their being,” and then freakout, shriek-out, and groove -- if they had the guts to imbibe it:

The Grand Island Independent (June 11, 1969). 

“I, a living, breathing creature of the cosmic entity, am now ready to enter the realm of those chosen to be allowed to drink of the Mystic Emerald fluids herein offered. I join the Order of Green Blood with an open mind and through the liquid’s powers am now prepared to safely view the unnatural green-blooded ones without fear of contamination.”

And so, once consumed, the narrator swore those who participated in the ritual would never turn into a green-blooded monster like those about to appear on screen. But instead of drinking an elixir of magical potion, what audiences got were ketchup-like condiment packets filled with a green-tinted gelatinous substance of unknown origin. When Sherman imbibed the contents as a test-run, he was reportedly sick for days and nearly called the whole thing off in fear of a class-action lawsuit. But they were already committed with the ad campaigns and trailers, so they just crossed their fingers, sent out the packets, and hoped they wouldn't get sued -- or kill anybody. They didn’t. 

The Des Moines Tribune (July 16, 1969). 

"Judging from this week's horror package of Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Blood Demon, green is the preferred color of blood this season," said Kevin Thomas in his review for The Los Angeles Times (January 9, 1970). "Indeed, for a mere $25 per thousand doses an exhibitor may obtain from the film's distributor a supply of 'Green Blood Potion' to pass out to patrons. 

"Actually, except for the coincidence that some hapless characters happen to spill some green blood in both films they otherwise have absolutely nothing in common. Blood Demon is as good as Mad Doctor of Blood Island is Bad ... Nevertheless, Blood Demon is one of the best German movies to arrive in America in years. As suspenseful and entertaining as it is, essentially it is a mood piece, with the emphasis on the romantic and the melancholy rather than merely the grisly.[It] is a film of ethereal beauty and striking imitativeness in the tradition of German Expressionism."

Hemisphere would cut the film down from its original 81-minute screen-time to 75-minutes. It was weird finally watching the original version for this retrospective as there were a few scenes that I did not remember at all and the film just didn't flow quite as well. Thus, if I'm being honest, the shorter version, to me, actually works better. Also of note, without the VHS murk the pristine print I watched, alas, makes it a little too easy to identify all the shop-window origins of all those dead bodies. Well, most, but not all, as Reinl and his crew did their best to hide the "set decorations."

The American distributor would also cut out a whole subplot about a burnt-out inn, where we first meet Anatol, in disguise; and worse yet, it's pretty much revealed that Fabian was not really a priest, ruining the later revelation. It also makes things a little repetitive and delays us from getting to the forest of cadavers, where the film finds a whole 'nother gear.  

It's not quite as bad as the extended cut of The Good, the Bad and The Ugly (alias Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), where it felt like someone added a gallon of diluting water to the world's most perfect batch of chili, but it is noticeable if you're only familiar with the old VHS release.

Also, I’m not sure who handled the dubbing into English for Hemisphere, but I found it odd that Barker was dubbed, too; and so help me, the voice actor sure sounded like Leonard Nimoy to me.

Now, what I've always found fascinating while watching these dubbed over foreign films is how thinking about the plot logically seldom works -- especially if we lose something in the translation, allowing the horror to become even more illogical. What I mean is: this lack of logic messes up the logical progression of what should transpire -- or what we believe to be the logical chain of events if we ever got trapped in an old haunted castle with a homicidal madman. And if we can't explain it or make sense of it, to me, that makes things even more nightmarish and unnerving. If nothing else, it helps keep the audience off balance. And once it gets cooking, all hope of any kind of equilibrium is lost while watching The Snakepit and the Pendulum.

Which leaves the question: If it’s really that good, then why isn’t this gleefully gothic creepfest better known than it is? Let me try to explain. I remember not long after I first published an initial review of this film at 3B Theater way back in 2001, when a reader emailed me, thanking me for identifying a character (Anatol) that had haunted him for years but couldn’t remember what film he was from. And there’s your problem.

Not helping matters is the films numerous titles and aliases, as it saw a release theatrically or on TV and home video as anything ranging from The Blood Demon, Blood of the Virgins, The Snakepit and the Pendulum, Torture Chamber, Castle of the Walking Dead, where I first encountered it on VHS some *gack* thirty years ago, and my personal favorite The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, which belongs in the Hall of Fame of such things.

The film still only runs a brief 81-minutes, but on top of taking a bit too long to get going, once the plot is laid out, admittedly, the dread runs through several peaks and valleys. And while it contains some of the best and most indelible horror images and set-pieces ever committed to film, unfortunately, these parts don’t hold together very well as a whole. 

Thus, the parts are greater, and more memorable than the sum.

However, I would still wholeheartedly recommend The Snakepit and the Pendulum -- under whatever title you find it under. It truly creeped me out, Boils and Ghouls, even though it seldom made a lick of sense.

Originally posted on February 28, 2001, at 3B Theater.

The Snakepit and the Pendulum (1967) Constantin Film :: Hemisphere Pictures / P: Erwin Gitt / D: Harald Reinl / W: Manfred R. Köhler, Edgar Allan Poe (story) / C: Ernst W. Kalinke / E: Hermann Haller / M: Peter Thomas / S: Lex Barker, Karin Dor, Vladimir Medar, Christiane Rücker, Carl Lange, Dieter Eppler, Christopher Lee