PIT & PENDULUM, 27min., Canada, Drama/Horror
Directed by J. Aldric Gaudet
It is the terrorizing story of a person sentenced to death who becomes the plaything of their jailers. They are sent walking through a dark room in hopes they will fall into a pit. When that doesn’t happen they are tied down on a table to watch the painfully slow descent of a swinging pendulum with a sharp-edged blade aimed at their stomach. Escaping from the blade did not mean freedom. The walls of the dungeon grow blistering hot first, then squeeze together to push them to the brink of the pit, before being saved at the very last second.

https://www.pit-pendulum.com/

Director Statement
This is an experiential experiment.

Edgar Allan Poe’s words provide the texture for the Audience’s imagination.

The story is about the unrelenting terror suffered by a prisoner at the hands of their jailers.

The film is about stimulating the Audience with cinematic techniques and the words of the author to provide for the Audience’s interpretation.

Black-Box Cinema advances Poe’s Telegraph Mosaic into visual form.

The film has 2 strands.

1) It demonstrates cinematic techniques in a simple context.

2) It challenges the Audience to become attentive participants.

Almost everything we watch spoonfeeds us without the need for our attentive participation.

See With Your Ears, Hear With Your Eyes

The writer gains attentive participation by surprising the Audience’s expectations.

The director gains attentive participation by letting the Audience fill in the details for themselves.