On Tuesday, October 8, 2019 at 9 pm, the Filmmuseum Munich, in cooperation with moviemax, presents the newly restored version of the feature film “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism” (Original German title: “Die Schlangengrube und der Pendel“) by Harald Reinl from 1967 exclusively and once on a big screen.
Horror films or just horror elements are rare in West German cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. They tried it anyway and put on a gothic horror movie with international flair on the legs. As director for “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism” Harald Reinl was committed, who had begun his long film career once with Leni Riefenstahl and successfully staged Edgar Wallace thriller, Heimatfilme and Karl May film adaptations. The exterior shots were taken in the Isartal, in Detmold and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The torture cellar was built in the Bavaria Filmstudios. The film designer Rolf Zehetbauer, an Academy Award-winning film architect, created a cabinet of horrors in 1967 in the studios of Bavaria Film. International stars like Karin Dor, Lex Barker and Christopher Lee got together. The film music was composed by the incomparable Peter Thomas.
The film, based on a novel by Edgar Allan Poe, begins with the fact that in 1801 the Count Regula is quartered for the murder of twelve virgins. Many years later, lawyer Roger Mont-Elise and the attractive baroness Lilian receive an invitation to the disreputable Sander Valley. The journey through ghostly forests leads you directly into the ruins of the castle of Count Regula and his torture chamber. No one can foresee that the revival of the count is being prepared here, but for this he still needs the blood of a thirteenth maiden …
The official releases of the film on the label M-Square Classics will take place from 2020.
Further information about the event can be found here: Filmmuseum Munich
