Page 189 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

The film is well into its overheated climax by now, so Annie also gets a dose of the rack and Nancy
has icy cold water and boiling oil poured onto her naked back. Travis spends most of the first half of
the film in the sort of flowery, silk dressing gown Jason King would be envious of, but I do not imagine
chat anyone is surprised when he turns out to be the muscular, bare-chested figure in mask, hood,
medallion and crimson tights. He oils himself up in front of facing, multiply reflecting, mirrors and
dresses in the Executioner's outfit. 'Now you'll be punished for your lechery', he promises his victims
and the mayhem really kicks in. Travis leers, cackles, cavorts, looks positively dizzy with punitive
teal. Only boring, cardigan-clad Rick and Edith survive, but not before she is stripped down to black
knickers and tied to an iron 'bull' with a furnace inside. Fortunately for her, a (necessary) continuity
error ensures that the furnace is never burning in establishing shots so she survives until Rick rescues
her. At least two reviews see Edith's survival as indicative of her moral superiority over the other
(promiscuous, exhibitionist) girls." But Edith's 'repressed' exterior also sets her up for a certain Sadean
logic - good girls get punished, too - and the film clearly relishes removing more of her clothes than
anyone else's. Travis has a protracted struggle with Rick and is finally impaled on a spiked dummy, the
'Lover of Death'. 'My body, my pure body has been contaminated', he gasps before expiring.

NATIONAL TRADITIONS AND GENERIC HYBRIDS

Bloody Pit of Horror is a hybrid of the Gothic, the giallo (named after the yellow book covers that
denoted the crime genre in Italy) and the peplum (costume or muscleman movies). However, it also
anticipates the Italian comic-strip adaptations which were to be based on fumetti like Kriminál (1967),
Diabolik, Satanik and Mr. X(all 1968). In this respect, Travis is a hybrid too, a mixture of Kriminál,
Maciste, sadistic Gothic villain and the masked killers who prowl the decadent world of the giallo. He
most closely resembles Mr. X in appearance - and the American character, The Phantom - but the
film also alludes to Kriminál in the figure of 'Skeletrix', a black skeletal bodystocking worn by one of
the men for the photo shoot. The fumetti neri of the 1960s are an important intermediary between
the Gothic and the titillating excesses of the giallo — the covers of Diabolik categorised the comic as
PI giallo a fumetti.
Bloody Pit of Horror actually seems to invite such reflexivity. Given that its two spectacles are
muscular male bodies and scantily-clad female victims, it is appropriate that it should allude to two
generic forms that embody these pleasures in an extreme way, the peplum and the giallo. The 'flat and
plain' photography does evoke 1960s porn, 1 6 but equally the world of comic strips and lurid book
jackets. Carlo Dumontet notes that the new breed of bodystocking-wearing criminal anti-heroes
-Diabolik and Kriminal, in particular - indicated some significant cultural shifts in Italy. The 1950s
and 1960s marked a period of economic growth, improved living standards and, consequently, some
changes in moral and cultural values.17 Dumontet implies that this involved a break from dominant
Catholic values, but I would suggest that it was more of a renegotiation. The giallo is especially
symptomatic of such a strategy. It is difficult to think of a more puritanical sub-genre, even if it did
display more flesh than Italian cinema had previously been used to. (Pedro Almodovar's Matador
(Spain, 1986) opens with a character masturbating to a video of Set Donne Per L'Assassino (Blood and
Black Lace, Mario Bava, Italy/France/West Germany, 1964)).

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