REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks and their comic-book connections…   — By ROB KELLY It’s that time again, when REEL RETRO CINEMA jumps back to an era in horror cinema before masked slashers, chainsaw-wielding cannibals and pea soup-spewing devil children. It was a simpler time, when spooky castles, black cats and dusty skeletons were enough to send shivers down the spines of moviegoers. We’ve previously covered Roger Corman’s adaptations of The Raven (click here), The Masque of the Red Death (click here), and Tomb of Ligeia (click here), so strap in and get ready to revisit the second of Corman’s “Poe Cycle” — 1961’s The Pit and the Pendulum starring (of course) Vincent Price, John Kerr, and the magnetic Barbara Steele. The screenplay was by the legendary Richard Matheson who, let’s say, took a loose approach when it came to adapting the source material. The film opens with Englishman Francis Barnard (Kerr) making a lonely trip to the castle owned by his brother-in-law Nicholas Medina (Price) to find out what happened to his sister Elizabeth (Steele), who died unexpectedly. Nicholas and his younger sister Catherine (Luana Anders) offer vague details about a rare blood disorder, but something seems amiss so Barnard declares he is staying until he can get to the bottom of the mystery. The story only grows more baffling when his sister’s physician, Dr. Leon (Antony Carbone) explains that Elizabeth “died of fright.” Demanding to know just where in the castle this happened, Nicholas takes Francis down into dusty, dark catacombs that house nothing less than a series of torture chambers. Nicholas says Elizabeth became obsessed with the devices, eventually locking herself into an iron maiden. Francis doesn’t buy any of it. Catherine explains to Francis (there’s a lot of explaining in this movie)  that when Nicholas was a child, he saw his father—once an apparatchik of the Spanish Inquisition—murder and torture his wife and brother, claiming they were having an affair behind his back. As you might guess, this left a lasting impression on Nicholas, who has been a bit squirrelly ever since. After that, even more mysterious things start happening. Elizabeth’s room is ransacked, her portrait slashed. Her beloved harpsichord plays in the middle of the night, and one of her rings is found on the keyboard. Worried that Elizabeth was given a premature burial; they exhume her corpse and see that the body looks as though it was trying to claw its way out of its coffin....