"Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" or "The Snake Pit and the Pendulum" (there are several alternate titles to this one) is a German 80-minute film from Germany and you can look out for German and English language version of this relatively short movie. Lead actor Lex Barker (who looks like Alec Baldwin occasionally) made this one already very much at the end of the Winnetou franchise that he, lead actress Karin Dor and director Harald Reinl became famous for. And you can also say "at the end of his life" as he died pretty prematurely only slightly over 5 years after this film here was made. It is a mix of horror, mystery and drama and of course a touch of romance was always there in the films from that time, especially with that final shot. The horror component is delivered by Christopher Lee here, who once again plays a vampire. The name is Regula this time although the Dracula reference is obvious. I like Lee as an actor, especially as Scaramanga, but here he was really not enough to let me enjoy this film. Then again, he is basically only in this film in the first 10 minutes and last 20 minutes, the rest is all about Barker's character. I personally wondered why they would even go to this place all of them with the danger waiting there for them. Truly reckless and strangely enough the carriage driver, the only one who acted reasonable and preferred not to go gets killed and presented as a coward while the brave ones survived. This doesn't make sense, they weren't brave in my opinion. They were foolish. Oh well.. I guess films were surely of a different crop back then. I do not recommend this film here. Thumbs down.
