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The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism More at IMDbPro »Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (original title)

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27 reviews in total

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17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Give us more!, 25 September 2005
Author: mido505 from Richmond, VA

The Castle of the Walking Dead is the first film that I have seen directed by Harold Reinl, the filmmaker who helmed numerous 'krimi' (German-made horror-thrillers based on the works of Edgar Wallace, precursors of the Italian 'giallo'), several entries in the 'Dr. Mabuse' series, and most of the 'Karl May' westerns. If this movie is any indication, Reinl is a major talent ripe for rediscovery by fans looking for a cinema that revels in flamboyant visual pyrotechnics, rather than in quotidian literacy and a politically correct 'sensibility'. Reinl may not be Mario Bava, but his extravagantly baroque camera style is nonetheless extremely impressive. The Castle of the Walking Dead is relentlessly designed; each shot has been carefully thought out and executed to its fullest illustrative potential. Set decoration, lighting, and camera movement are all carefully integrated; there is almost no shot that is arbitrary, accidental, or unnecessary. Reinl is an obvious practitioner of the great expressionist tradition in cinema, in which the significance of each shot is determined by the director's architectural and illuminative insight, in opposition to current film dogma, in which the subordinate elements of the shot (the acting, the script) dictates its formal structure. Significantly, only Christopher Lee, a performer who, like Lugosi, his predecessor, understands the physically revelatory importance of the actor to the overall impact of a film, is able to rise to the director's challenge. The Castle of the Walking Dead is ultimately derivative, badly acted, and pointless, but, for fans of cinema, can be a joy to behold. I should note that the DVD that I watched was faded and crappy; one can only hope that in the future the rest of Reinl's output will be rediscovered and restored with the loving care that it deserves. I can't wait.

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15 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Visually stunning Teutonic Horror., 15 February 2006

Author: BrentCarleton

It is fortuitous that this film has at last reached the light of day again, (via DVD) since it provides a welcome reminder of the type of Saturday matinée "scary" fare 1960s parents could safely drop the youngsters off to see--in some ways similar to 1962's "The Magic Sword."

Boasting a very "Siegfried" style hero in Lex Barker, a particularly comely brunette heroine, and Christopher Lee at his most cadaverously malevolent, horror fans should not be disappointed in the regulation personalities. Nor will they be disappointed in the abundance of Gothic contrivances: snakes, skulls, potions, glass coffins, razor pendulums etc. etc. And to those with questions about the logic of the narrative, don't bother with them--the rapid fire pacing won't wait for you to find an answer anyway--if nothing else this film does move!

Ultimately, however, it is in the visuals that this film most impresses. Production design and color are of a very high order indeed, ranking very favorably against Jack Asher and Mario Bava, and it is impossible to believe that the previous work of these two gentlemen is not deliberately evoked here.

Much could be observed in this connection, but suffice it to say that rarely has a nocturnal forest been presented more balefully, with gnarled trees juxtaposed against an ultramarine sky.

Even more in its favor is the effective use of a medieval Bavarian town, whose quaint architecture seems right out of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Here is an example of location shooting that counts for something! Overall, although the credits credit Edgar Allan Poe as the basis of the story, the piece feels altogether more like a "penny-dreadful" hybrid pastiche of the aforementioned Hoffmann and Ludwig Tieck.

Highly recommended for admirers of the genre.

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14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Unreal & surreal..., 20 December 2001
Author: the lioness from United States

Next to "The Whip and the Body", this has got to be Lee's weirdest movie.

Lee plays Count Regula which is a very fitting name since he "regularly" frequents the local village & steals away young girls to his castle. He tortures them & uses their blood for his "life elixir". His final victim manages to escape to inform the local authorities and he is executed for his crimes (check out how its done). He manages to come back years later to exact his revenge on the descendants of his last victim & the judge/magistrate that sentenced him to death.

Among the actors you've got to check out is the guy who portrays the Count's butler/servant. He's really wild. In some scenes, he actually steals the scenes from Lee!This guy takes the phrase "loyal servant" to a whole new level! If the average household of today had a madman like him in service, we'd all be in trouble!

Lex Barker is the Count's adversary/good guy here. Sometimes Lex acts as if he's sleep-walking through his scenes. His voice also never seems to change its tone. The other performers are good.

The locales are incredible. I believe this film was shot in Germany.Very beautiful & peaceful but don't be alarmed horror fans. You will love the scenery around the Count's castle. Can you picture a countryside littered with dead bodies everywhere? You will once you've seen this movie.

For those of you that love a little ham in your horror, this one's for you! Its very hard to find in mainstream video stores so you may want to check the ones that cater to specialized genres. It will be worth the search.

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15 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Excellent Gothic horror film!, 29 January 2007

Author: capkronos (capkronos00@hotmail.com) from Ohio, USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Beautifully photographed, fast-paced, unique, colorful, atmospheric and even surreal at times, this combines elements from Gothic films popular at the time (not only limited to Bava, but stretching into Roger Corman's Poe series and the Hammer costume/period horrors of the day), but somehow manages to distinguish itself entirely. Definitely not a movie to be judged on literary faithfulness (it is based - very very loosely - on Poe's 'Pit and the Pendulum'), then again it doesn't really need to be. The film open with a standard prologue where hateful-looking Satanist/sadist/scientist Count Frederic Regula (Christopher Lee) is in prison awaiting execution for killing 12 virgins and using their blood in his experiments. He has a spiked gold mask slammed onto his face by a red-hooded executioner (shades of BLACK Sunday), is dragged into a small town's city square, tied to four different horses and then drawn-and-quartered (pulled apart). Before dying, he promises to get revenge on the descendants of both the judge who sentenced him (Lex Barker, who was a big star in Germany at the time) and the woman who managed to escape from his torture chamber and warn authorities (Karin Dor, the very lovely former wife of the director).

Thirty-five years later, strapping manly-man Roger Mont Elise (Lex Barker again) arrives in the same town to claim an inheritance. Said inheritance is Castle Andomai, a remote, crumbling castle far from the main town. Superstitious townspeople try to warn him not to go near the place, but he shrugs them off and decides to hire an apprehensive coachman (Dieter Eppler) to take him there. Accompanying them on the trip is a very strange priest named Father Fabian (Vladimir Medar) who claims he just needs a ride. And what a strange coach trip it turns out to be! At first, the countryside is serene and picturesque with a clear blue sky, moss-covered trees and quiet ponds. Suddenly, black-hooded men on horseback blaze the trail. They attack another coach, steal it and leave behind two female passengers; the beautiful Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor again) and her cute blonde servant Babette (Christiane Rücker). Roger learns that Lilian is headed to the same exact location he is (she and Roger being, of course, the two descendants of the 'cursed' people from the opening segment) so he gives the two ladies a lift. And then things get really weird; almost fairy-tale like in the dark imagery. The carriage marches across a blood red sky... Every house on the way seems to have been burned to the ground... The fog grows thicker and thicker... At dark, the trees take on a sinister life of their own, with body parts protruding from the trunks, squawking ravens lining limbs and corpses hanging from the branches. It's all too much for the harried coachman, who promptly keels over from a heart attack! A strange man named Anathol (Carl Lange) also shows up long enough to kidnap the women and steal the carriage.

Roger and Fabian finally come across Castle Andomai and find Lilian and Babette unharmed inside. The four then discover why it has been nicknamed "The Bloody Castle." Inside is a virtual treasure trove of visual beauty and horrific set design, with prominent shades of blue, purple, green and gold in the backdrop. The art direction is exceptional. Many walls are covered with demonic, abstract paintings. Others are made entire of skulls. There are tons of secret passageways and every room is sealed off by razor sharp gates when characters enter or exit. Vultures line corridors. Many of the rooms are designed solely for torture, including one with a rack over a bed of spikes, one where the floor slowly pulls back to reveal a pit of poisonous snakes underneath and another where a huge pendulum emerges from the ceiling. All kinds of creepy crawlers (snakes, scorpions, rats, lizards, tarantulas) make appearances, and so does an undead-looking Christopher Lee again; at least long enough to explain his attempts to create a special "life elixir" and how he needs a virginal thirteenth victim to accomplish his goal. And Anathol, the guy who stole to coach/girls, turns up once again as Lee's ghostly accomplice.

Aside from the production design, the make-up effects are also good and there are several surprising visual effects using stop-motion animation. There's also some non-obtrusive comedy elements; both dark humored and lighthearted. Former "Tarzan" Lex Barker's (dubbed) performance is tolerable enough, even though these romantic male leads in Gothic horrors are easily forgotten when the other crazy cats pop up. Future Bond girl Karin Dor (who'd star in Hitchcock's TOPAZ the following year) does very well as the heroine, Vladimir Medar is great comic relief and Lee does an equally fine job with limited screen time as the dour, blue-faced, cross-hating Regula. However, the movie is pretty much stolen by Carl Lange as Lee's sinister/gleefully sadistic/over-the-top sidekick.

Anyway, I totally loved every second of this one. It's very underrated, has awesome sets/art direction, great cinematography, a great cast, a great score, is wonderfully atmospheric and has the best Pendulum scene of all time (much better than the one Corman's crew staged in 1961). Anyone who loves Bava, Hammer Horror, Corman's Poe flick, Gothic horrors, etc., should really enjoy it.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
A Corman Type Poe Flick meets Bava in Germany!, 21 November 2000

Author: sherlock-34 from Calgary, AB, Canada

Recently viewed this little gem as "The Torture Chamber of Dr. sadism". Originally released in the US and UK as "The Blood Demon", while it's German title was "Die Schlangengrube und Das Pendel". An odd film that seemed to be a sort of German take on a mixture of Bava with one of Corman's AIP Poe efforts.

Count Regula (Christopher Lee) is drawn and quartered for the death of 12 maidens, but swears his revenge. 35 years later a disparate group ends up at the Counts ruined castle. The 4 travelers are Baroness Lillian (Karin Dor of Bond fame), her maid Babette, Roger (Lex Barker, former Tarzan and a huge star in Germany) and the monk Fabian (a hilarious turn from Vladimir Medar). As it turns out, Roger and the Baroness are the descendants of the folks that originally put the Count to death and he wants revenge. The crazed servant Anatol lures them to the castle and reanimates the Count. The Poe elements then come into play as Roger faces a deadly pendulum and Lillian is faced with a pit full of snakes. Do they foil the reanimated Count or meet their doom? Check this fun film out to see for yourself!

I expected this to be a really bad film, but was very surprised to find that I enjoyed it tremendously. Christopher Lee's performance is all menace, but with just a smattering of black humour to keep things moving. Lex Barker, more than a decade after playing Tarzan, looks great and is a perfect heroic figure. Karin Dor is lovely and does a fair bit of over the top shrieking, but still manages to give a convincing performance. This was a whole lot of fun! A bit of dark humour, Grimm's fairytale mixed with a Mario Bava sensibility and a little Poe thrown in for good measure makes for a superior European horror flick. Hopefully a nicer print will turn up or a DVD release, as the Magnum Entertainment video that I viewed was murky, faded and very badly edited.

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Wow, where did this come from?, 12 December 2003
Author: Gafke from United States

What a cool-o little flick this is! Christopher Lee is Count Regula (say that name real fast and see what it sounds like) who, at films beginning, has a spiked mask nailed to his face and is then drawn and quartered in a public square for the torture/murders of 12 virgins. 35 years later, the daughter of the woman who turned him in and the son of the man who sentenced him, are brought to an eerie castle in the deep dark woods.

There's a GREAT spooky carriage ride through the creepiest forest in the world, where dead-pale bodies hang from the branches. The castle looks pretty convincing; drippy stone walls lined with human skulls and draped with cobwebs, its corridors choked with vultures. There are pits filled with poisonous snakes and hairy spiders, skeletons everywhere. A pretty blond maid is nearly impaled on a board full of spikes and The Pit and The Pendulum is re-enacted, with all of the sweaty tension of the original tale. Christopher Lee looks wonderfully terrible - a shambling, blueish corpse with a nail-hole scarred face, absolutely void of emotion as he plots his revenge against our beautiful couple. There's a lot of tension here, lots of icky-yucky moments and a genuinely creepy atmosphere that seeps into every single frame. There's also a rare, non-saccharine and totally satisfying happy ending. Don't miss this one, it's really great!

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Unexpectedly Artistic and Imaginative Shocker, 15 December 1999
Author: Gothick from Boston, Mass., USA

My memories of seeing "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" as it was called on US local television in the mid Seventies date back a quarter of a century. I well remember the first time I saw the movie. I wasn't expecting anything at all special, certainly nothing as gripping and fascinating as this. The movie has a real feeling of something you would read about in a crumbling old manuscript in a deserted, dusty library. Lee is terrific as always and has a tremendous presence, even though he is only on screen for brief periods. Lex Barker is surprisingly effective as the hero, and Karin Dor is beautiful and elegant as always, as the heroine. The sets really steal the movie, though--inspired by the weird paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, they give a sense of ancient evil, laced with a perverted sort of fanciful whimsy, to the scenes in the castle.

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6 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
A Surreal Masterpiece!, 25 March 1999
Author: edge-16 from new jersey, usa

This is an unknown surreal little masterpiece of horror! Borrowing loosely from Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulem", director Reinl does a masterful job of pacing and fills the screen with surreal and spine tingling images. There is atmosphere a plenty throughout the film and a sense of uneasiness. The set pieces and costumes are beautiful and are enhanced by the color filming of the movie. Christopher Lee is the rejuvenated Count Regula out to destroy the last member of one of the families that put him to death. Karin Dor is the last female member of one of the families and her blood will give the count what he needs for his "life exlixer". A fun and atmospheric movie that one can watch over and over again. Just beware the heavily cut video rental version and try to find the complete print.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Very entertaining and colorful European Gothic horror film, 10 May 2008

Author: TimothyFarrell from Worcester, MA

Despite being a West German production, "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" easily stands up against many of the fine Italian Gothic horror films of the era. Its so good in fact its easy to mistake it as being one. Despite being admittedly not on the level of Mario Bava (than again, what is?), its a very entertaining and colorful little slice of grand guignol. The film finds a balance between camp and actual quality. Namely, this film drips with atmosphere. The cinematography is terrific, and there's plenty of colorful bits of borderline surrealism that seem to foreshadow Dario Argento and "The Evil Dead". The dialog is often laughable, and the plot is both unoriginal and often illogical. Still, the film is so enjoyable this hardly matters.

Many will watch this because it has the great Christopher Lee in it. He doesn't show up until the last third of the film, but when he does, hes terrific as always. His character (the "Dr. Sadism" of the title, despite having a different moniker in the film) is a great over-the-top villain. Along with the colorful set designs, his character really drives home the comic book nature of the film. The rest of the cast, including European horror standbys Lex Baxter and the gorgeous Karin Dor, are pretty dull, but with the great Lee on hand, they're easily overshadowed. "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" is one of the funnest horror movies I've seen in recent memory. (8/10)

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
It'll scare the pants off you!!, 4 January 2008

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When I was a kid, I tried watching THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM (one of MANY alternate titles for this movie). However, I never got past about the first half of the film--it scared me do much I turned the TV off and spent the rest of the night worrying. And for 35 years I've wondered if the movie was really THAT scary or was I just a wimpy kid. Well, after finally getting a copy of the DVD, I realized that most any kid would indeed be scared watching this Gothic horror flick. That's because the atmosphere in the film is truly horrific--with more disturbing images that you'd find in three or four horror films. And, although the film stars Christopher Lee and Lex Barker, it is not a Hammer Film and is much more visually disturbing than any of their movies.

The film begins with Christopher Lee being condemned to death for the murder of 12 virgins. Due to the number of victims, he is ordered to be drawn and quartered. While not all of this is shown, enough is that it might be a bit of a shock. Years pass and the memory of this maniac pass as well. Now 35 years later (hmm...the same length of time since I was first traumatized by the movie), the townspeople have only a dim memory of him or his horrors. When Lex Barker arrives in town, he is told that he needs to meet a Count Regula at his castle but no one seems to remember him or the castle--even though he was the guy drawn and quartered decades earlier.

Finally, Barker is able to find a priest who knows where the Count's castle is and the two of them set off for the meeting. On the way, they pass through countryside that SHOULD have warned them to go back--especially when the woods near the castle is littered with body parts and people who had been hung. Obviously, the Count is no saint!! Why they didn't go back is beyond me!! Whatever the Count needs to tell him, it certainly isn't worth continuing the journey! However, Barker and the priest are apparently idiots, so they continue. On the way, they meet up with another carriage which contains a couple nice looking young ladies (one of which looked a lot like Barbara Steele, a famous Gothic horror star of the age). Unfortunately, the ladies are soon kidnapped and it's up to the two men to continue the journey and save the damsels.

Once at the castle, the place looks much more like a twisted torture chamber than a castle. A drawbridge with knives protruding from it, paintings on the walls inspired by paintings by Hieronymous Bosch, trap doors, sick torture devices and dead bodies litter the place and this is not a segment for the squeamish. How as a kid I was able to watch this much is amazing, as it looks like the interior decorating was done by the Marquis de Sade and Satan! A zombie-like servant appears and announces that the Count is dead but will be coming back to life that night to meet his guests. Wow--now THAT'S going all out for company! And so in a sick little ceremony, the zombie-servant cuts his wrists and green blood pours from his veins--all over the glass coffin containing the dismembered Count. At this point, the arms and legs all reattach and the guy wakes up--and that is when 35 years ago I turned off the film!!! First, as far as ambiance go, you can't get much scarier than this very disturbing film and the movie had a nice look--even though the DVD print was awful. While audiences in the 21st century might laugh at it a bit, back in 1967, this was quite a shocker. Skulls, corpses, vultures picking apart bodies, etc.--it's all very graphic and intense. And as for the town in the first portion of the movie, it looked very old and authentic--having been filmed in the town of Rothenburg, Germany. I've visited this very quaint town and quickly recognized the buildings.

The acting, despite being a very international film is just fine. Most of the actors originally spoke German and I know that Barker was fluent in the language as well. I don't know if Lee spoke German as well, but in the American print he and Barker are not dubbed--they speak English.

As for the plot, up until the very end the movie was well done. Not exactly deep, but very well done. The various graphic images and plot devices really were effective. It's just that the end occurred so quickly and almost randomly--leaving you feeling like they just threw a cheap ending on the film because they were running out of film! While not a bad ending, it was the weakest part of the film.

Overall, this is a scare the pants off you type of film. Not especially deep, it still will have you on the seat of your pants and amazed at the brutality of the evil Regula and his henchman.

FYI--In addition to being a very bad print, the film also was not captioned or closed captioned--something that might have been helpful.

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