This version of The Pit and the Pendulum comes from 2009. There were more than one that year? This one is credited in the credit sequence as David DeCoteau’s Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum.
Is there a pit? Maybe. Sort of. A pit of the mind. Is there a pendulum? Yes. It is totally fair to say that this movie is adapted from the title of the Edgar Allen Poe story.
Some random hot-but-oh-so-stupid college-age kids roll up to a big house in the country. There is this scientist person who can help them escape the boundaries of pain and fear, and move past the constraints of fatigue. The kids are a combination of athletes and other adrenaline-seekers (Kyle is a storm chaser). And one random woman who strolls up on the college kids and is a local.
The scientist in question (J.B.) is the daughter of the psychologist who founded the asylum that was the original purpose of the big house. They emigrated years ago from the Uncanny Valley. Not really, but there is some aspect of her face (genetics? plastic surgery? genetic surgery?) that gives her the uncanny valley vibe. It’s the way her cheekbones sit stationary on her face as her expressions work their way around those unfeeling stanchions.
J.B. basically gives the college kids the run of her house, and offers to hypnotize them into … running faster, holding their breath longer, lifting more weight … whatever their desires are. She is a movie hypnotist, and can put someone into a trace with only the brief sway of a pocketwatch. When J.B. hypnotizes people, she walks them into a dark pit, in their mind. This is the pit of the film’s title.
As this is a DeCoteau film, it will not shock you to hear that when someone asks Kyle, “are you a ladies’ man,” Kyle deflects the question. A lot of hairless-chested dudes sleep in boxer briefs and wear tube socks to bed, I’m just sayin’.
J.B. immediately begins hypnotizing the young men, and killing them. The survivors only know that their numbers are dwindling. J.B. says that the missing participants left because they were successful. The survivors don’t exactly believe her, but don’t exactly do anything to keep themselves alive, either. They still voluntarily go to hypnotism therapy sessions. My favorite one involves the two wrestlers, and a whip.
The two non-J.B. women (one college athlete, one the suspicious local) are a little smarter. They do not voluntarily allow themselves to be hypnotized. They hook up with each other (as do Kyle and his roommate). Those four are the last potential victims left alive. Heteronormativity kills! Or maybe I’m overthinking it. [Spoiler: I am absolutely overthinking it.]
Toward the end of the movie, J.B.’s brother escapes from the room where she’s apparently kept him tied to a chair for a few decades. Kyle is hypnotized, walked to the dark pit in his mind (and the garden in the outside world), and tied to a contraption which involves a sharp axe pendulum. Movie title unlocked!
The end of the movie involves a cameo by Greg Sestero (Mark from The Room), and is especially stupid.
I will give the last lines of this review to Amy:
Streaming on a midnight dreary, while I pondered, drunk and bleary
On many a quaint and curious display of visual motifs
If we are not to go full frontal, to imply the naked contrapuntal
Or a healthy lad in full gruntle – lest the censors have their beefs
What should clad round buns and chiseled chests in bas-reliefs?
Quoth the Raven, “Boxer briefs.”