He was a homicidal maniac who LIVED TO KILL!
Bloody Pit of Horror is a 1965 Italian Slasher Movie starring Mickey Hargitay.
Centuries ago, a madman known as the Crimson Executioner tortured innocents to death in his castle, where he was eventually executed with his own iron maiden. In the modern day, a group of models has arrived at the castle for a horror-themed photoshoot, not knowing that a former actor lives there. This actor sees himself as the Executioner's successor and proceeds to torture and murder his way through the models.
This film contains examples of:
- Alternate DVD Commentary: Both Incognito Cinema Warriors XP and Rifftrax had a run at riffing the movie.
- Bait-and-Switch: Earlier scenes are set up to make it look like Travis is possessed by the spirit of the Crimson Executioner. It's later made clear that Travis had his costume and death traps set up long before Rick and the models ever arrive.
- Big Bad: Travis Anderson, the torture-happy master of the castle.
- Colourful Theme Naming: The Crimson Executioner. It's a guy in a bright red suit that looks like he stole it from The Phantom and dyed it.
- Damsel in Distress: Every single woman in the film. Only one of them has anything close to agency; the rest are just Red Shirt models there to die at the end during the torture scene.
- Death Trap: Anderson puts one of his victims in a weirdly elaborate one: She's tied up in a rope web, and a mechanical spider with poison claws descends upon her. Any touching of the webs will lead to a bunch of arrows firing and killing everybody in the room.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Halfway invoked by the movie's title. Since when has any bloody pit not been full of horrors? The horrors are implied.
- Dies Wide Shut: The original Crimson Executioner dies with his eyes open in the iron maiden.
- Evil Laugh: The villain has one for the entire final act of the movie where he's torturing his victims. He basically gleefully runs from death trap to death trap either adjusting it to make sure his victims suffer slowly or outright killing them when he's ready. It's clear how much he enjoys it too. Yikes.
- Excuse Plot: The whole film is clearly just leading up to the torture scene at the end where the women are mostly naked and being treated horribly for very cheap and disturbing titillation.
- Exploitation Film: It's really just an Excuse Plot to have topless women tortured and screaming at the top of their lungs. You know, if you're into that.
- Fanservice: Not counting the final act, there is plenty of skin shown by the models that is not gross.
- Fan Disservice: The models are stripped down to their undies... and tortured and killed.
- Gorn: Well, the 1965 equivalent of gorn. The final act has the remaining survivors trussed up in death traps that either slowly kill them or just torture them while the villain watches on with glee.
- Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: Overlapping with the above redundancy department, the title is one of these overly long descriptions for some that's rather simple. It's just a torture pit and it's not full of blood.
- Haunted House: Subversion. There aren't any spirits, but the house looks and sounds exactly like a stereotypical haunted house with secret rooms and corridors, creepy paintings, and cobwebs all over the place. And oh, you know, the torture pit in the basement.
- Hypocrite: Despite killing people for their sexual impurity, Travis is also The Peeping Tom.
- Iron Maiden: Not the band, of course, but the original Crimson Executioner is executed by putting him in one of these and closing it shut. There is also one in the spooky castle that ends up killing one of the hapless models as well.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Travis gets killed by one of his own devices, the Lover of Death, a dummy with venomous barbs.
- Laughing Mad: The Crimson Executioner is outright gleeful when he murders the innocent, laughing for pretty much the entire final act.
- Narcissist: Travis is obsessed with the idea of perfection, mostly his own image.
- The Place
- Predecessor Villain: Anderson's murders are directly inspired by the Crimson Executioner, a Serial Killer from centuries prior.
- Reincarnation Romance: Initially, the master of the house sends everyone away, but then he spots one of the women that looks like his lost love from a former life, so he then allows them to stay so he can try to talk to her, but ultimately the entire situation devolves into him killing them all.
- Show Within a Show: Our victim pool is in the castle to photograph images for a horror short story anthology.
- Shout-Out: The castle is noted as resembling something out of a Frankenstein film.
- Tom the Dark Lord: It is pretty pathetic to be tortured to death by a guy named Travis. At least adopting the moniker The Crimson Executioner puts a more menacing spin on it.
- The X of Y: The title of the movie, naturally, fits this trope.
