This film is currently unavailable
The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope
Švankmajer's second adaptation of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, in which a prisoner is forced to undergo trials of torture.
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1983 15 mins Not rated
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Overview
In this black and white and overwhelmingly tactile universe, a faceless and impersonal inquisitor approaches a trapped man. Although the film is clearly set in the distant past, at the time of production (1983) the Czech authorities assumed it to be a direct attack on the regime resulting in a ban.
See also Jan Švankmajer's other short films, The Ossuary, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Castle of Otranto.
Related
Animation & Artists Moving Image
The Garden
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1991 92 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Inside his modest, sparsely-furnished home on the barren, windswept Dungeness coastline, Derek Jarman dreams.
The Last of England
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1987 91 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman's passionate and poetic lament on the rise of Thatcherism and corporate dealings.
Behindert
Documentary 1974 98 mins Director: Stephen Dwoskin
The account of a close, personal relationship as experienced by a disabled man.
Trying to Kiss the Moon
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1994 96 mins Director: Stephen Dwoskin
Autobiographical film by the veteran disabled experimental filmmaker, Steve Dwoskin.
Tehran Taboo
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2016 96 mins Director: Ali Soozandeh
In this gorgeously animated drama, the lives of several strong-willed women and a young musician intersect in contemporary Iran.
Early Man
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2018 89 mins Director: Nick Park
In Aardman’s latest animated adventure, Caveman Dug and his pet hog, Hognog, must unite their tribe if they're are to survive the threat of pompous tyrant Lord Nooth.
Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film
To Have and to Hold
Drama 2000 13 mins Director: John Hardwick
A woman finds that death will not part her from her deceased lover.
Night of the Living Dead
Horror 1968 96 mins Director: George A. Romero
Landmark film from 'zombie godfather' Romero, whose makeshift heroes fight for their lives against a new and terrifying enemy.
One of the Missing
War 1968 27 mins Director: Tony Scott
A nightmarish, Gothic American tale directed by a 24-year-old Tony Scott.
The Man from Nowhere
Children's 1976 59 mins Director: James Hill
Victorian orphan Alice Harvey - arriving to live at her great uncle's spooky house - is frightened by a mysterious, dark-clad intruder.
Out of the Darkness
Children's 1985 68 mins Director: John Krish
A ghostly drama of the Derbyshire plague village of Eyam, as unquiet spirits of the long dead make contact with the living.
Haunters of the Deep
Children's 1984 61 mins Director: Andrew Bogle
A ghostly boy returns from the grave to warn against reopening 'The Devil's Mine' in this spooky drama.
New
My Death Is a Mockery
Crime 1952 69 mins Director: Tony Young
Hop aboard for a choppy Channel crossing with this bleak, bullet-spattered sea-smuggling crime drama.
Room at the Top
Drama 1958 117 mins Director: Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton directs this romantic, love-triangle drama featuring Simone Signoret in an Oscar-winning performance.
Mary Queen of Scots
Period drama 2018 124 mins Director: Josie Rourke
Saoirse Ronan is Mary Stuart, facing off against Margot Robbie's Elizabeth I in this striking, feminist take on 16th-century history.
Beautiful Boy
Drama 2018 121 mins Director: Felix Van Groeningen
Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet give blistering performances as a father and son in this gripping story of a family dealing with addiction over many years.
Colette
Biopic 2017 112 mins Director: Wash Westmoreland
This witty, Belle Époque-era biopic stars Keira Knightley and Dominic West as literary couple Colette and Willy, whose relationship rewrote social and gender rules.
The Raft
Documentary 2018 98 mins Director: Marcus Lindeen
Imagine Big Brother at sea, but with no evictions. Director Marcus Lindeen innovatively uncovers the human stories behind a 1970s social experiment, salaciously dubbed ‘The Sex Raft’.