By TESS HENSON

I just love schlocky B-rated movie titles with the descriptive "blood"—or, even more favorably--"bloody" in them, don't you?

A friend and I have all sorts of fun vocalizing some of the, ahem, campier titles. One of our favorites to walk around the house spouting off is Night Of The Bloody Apes--always articulated with carnival barker enthusiasm. Another example is Invasion Of The Blood Farmers. The longer the title, the more fun the exaggerated enunciation!

We've recently come across another favorite of ours to gleefully spew at each other--Bloody Pit Of Horror. Not only is it a fun title to announce loudly as a greeting while walking in the front door, it's also a damn fine little piece of cheesy Eurotrash!

Bloody Pit Of Horror (1965) (A.K.A. Il boia scarlatto, Il Castello di Artena, The Castle Of Artena, Crimson Executioner, The Red Hangman--US promotional title, The Scarlet Executioner, Some Virgins For The Hangman, A Tale Of Torture--US title, and Virgins For The Hangman) may have better sported a title such as Oily Pit Of Horror or Bloody Pit Of Oil as Hungarian- born muscleman and 1955's Mr. Universe Miklos "Mickey" Hargitay slicks himself up and chews scenery as the self-exiled Hollywood actor Travis Anderson, who has secluded himself in an old castle previously owned by one "Crimson Executioner."

When a group of photographers and models who are interested in a pulp horror novel cover shoot show up, the reclusive Anderson and his striped-pirate-shirt- flood-pants-wearing henchmen are less than enthusiastic to accommodate them. However, when Anderson spies and recognizes one of the beauties as his former fiancée, Edith (Luisa Baratto as "Louise Barrett"), he has a change of mind and decides to let them stay--forbidding them entrance to the castle's dungeon.

The group begins to scout locations appropriate for their macabre photo stills, and finds the castle has all they expected in the way of atmosphere and aesthetics. The Gothic architecture and many "props" they find along to way only add to their excitement of getting some really great shots. Knight suits and torture devices abound. A sort of makeshift pendulum is found, only instead of a big swinging blade, it is made up of several sharp swords. The crew immediately goes about getting set up for some shots.

Right off the bat—yes, there is a flappity rubber bat that shows up in a couple of scenes--the deaths begin. The girls go about slipping into their sexy, exploitative outfits (Femi Benussi as "Femi Martin" who plays Annie is really an eyeful for you dog-faced boys--and girls), and the crew helps one of their male models--Max (played by Alfredo Rizzo as "Alfred Rice")--get into place on a table under the pendulum they have found. The other girls begin to pose for the various lewd book covers and photos are snapped as a jaunty little polka tune plays in the background.

Max is ready for his shoot, and as the pendulum--which supposedly is safe to use--is set free to swing, the rope from which it dangles breaks and the swords impale the poor guy lying on the table, killing him. The girls and crew--in shock--powwow to discuss what they should do. The money-hungry manager of the shoot decides that they should continue with their work because "Max would've wanted it that way".

As you may now have guessed, everyone is very on edge about the whole situation, and they basically pair off into smaller groups to take a rest and recover from the shock of their friend's death before continuing the shoot. This is their mistake--they should've stayed together.

One couple--Kinojo, an exotic model from Hawaii played by Moa Tahi and her boyfriend take a walk through some of the darker parts of the castle. The come upon an ancient torture device that her boyfriend explains is an Iron Maiden. A flappity rubber (to us anyway) bat suddenly flies at Kinojo and has she jumps back to avoid it, she bumps into the latch that has, up until now, sealed the Iron Maiden shut, and breaks it.

Unbeknownst to them, this is the device in which the Crimson Executioner himself was sealed by a religious tribunal some 400 years before--and the Maiden has not been opened since. This seems to unleash the Executioner's soul--which then proceeds to possess the current owner--Anderson.

As Anderson begins to spy on his guests through various secret portals, and as he begins to witness their supposed immoralities he becomes more and more agitated. Finally, spying another of the models and her beau making out in one of the castle chambers, he becomes completely unhinged, and with the possession by the Crimson Executioner now completely claiming him, he dons red tights, a red hood, black eye-mask and a gold medallion and begins to plot the tortures he will administer to these "sinners".

At this point in the film, Hargitay delivers some of the most unintentionally hysterical lines you may ever have the pleasure of hearing in B-moviedom. He begins spouting off that their immoralities are desecrating his 'perfect' body, and other lines to that effect.

What makes this so funny is not only his delivery, but that he was indeed touted as "Man With The Most Perfect Body In The World" by outrageous actress Mae West some 10 years before this film as he was one of the hunky bodybuilders who carried the diva onstage during The Mae West Revue, which was going on at that time. I guess ole Mickey took this appellage to heart, and I wonder if the lines he spouts during "Bloody Pit..." about his "perfect body"--and there are plenty of them--weren't ad-libbed by him!

At any rate, the film progresses pretty predictably from this point, with the gorgeous girls being hunted down, trapped and tortured in various lewd, and I'm sure for the times, horrific ways. Crewmember Rick (played by Walter Brandi as "Walter Brandt") becomes the film's titular hero as he goes about saving (or attempting to anyway--only he and one other girl--Edith--get out alive) the damsels in distress from the increasingly insane Anderson-turned-Executioner.

But there are still some high points to talk about. One of the most intense scenes has the lovely Hawaiian model Kinojo caught in a huge man-made spider's web. The floor beneath and spread out in front of her is rigged with more ropey spider webbing which reveals a booby trap. If one of the strings are even slightly touched, a slew of arrows imbedded in the side walls of the chamber will be released, effectively killing off any would-be rescuer.

However, this does not daunt the heroic Rick who flattens himself out and inches his way under the strings--at first face-down and then on his back--until he is clear from them on the other side and can get to Kinojo.

Alas, he is too late, as not only does the trap include the deadly arrows, but also a huge mechanical spider that swings ever closer to Kinojo's lovely face. A needle, which serves as a makeshift stinger, is full of poison, and if it even just grazes her porcelain skin--it will kill her. Rick cannot save her in time as the venomous mechanical spider reaches her first and she succumbs.

This is probably the best scene in the film for chills and thrills, and it is interesting to note that the cheesy mechanical spider was devised by none other than a young Carlo Rambaldi, who went on to win an Oscar for his special effects efforts in the beloved E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial!

Other highlights include--well--the torture scenes! The Executioner--which looks like the comic anti-hero "The Phantom"--only in red instead of gray, gleefully tortures the beauties in various ways including another interesting scene in which major hottie Femi Benussi (Femi Martin) and another model are scantily clad and strapped to a revolving post.

At one of the corners by this contraption is a board rigged with several swords that when pushed (or shoved with great force as the Executioner is wont to do) through some holes, begins to graze the skin of the models as they round that particular corner. As the Executioner madly shoves the swords through, the grazing becomes outright bloodletting as the blades pierce the skin just above the girl's nipples. If you’re even remotely Sadean, this scene is disturbingly titillating.

If you're not, and if you're female, this scene will have you gripping your breasties in sympathetic pain. I won't tell you which way was I was affected. Other tortures include the rack--again with Benussi getting all the attention, and another interesting contraption, which looked like a stone bull in which there was a compartment cut out. A person--this time Edith--is strapped to the bull stomach down. Hot coals are then put inside the compartment directly beneath her. The stone then heats up unbearably, burning her skin and causing great pain.

Another model is strung up in handcuffs while the Executioner pours what looks to be either boiling black oil or tar down her back. Of course, all of these torture scenes feature scantily-clad, nearly nekkid lovelies that I'm sure the censors at the time had a field day with. At last, Rick appears to save the remaining lady left alive, and to dispatch the Executioner in a no holds-barred fisticuffs and wrasslin'' match that really shows off Hargitay's, er, more well endowed pieces-parts. In short, ladies--he had a real nice package.

As an aside--it is hard to think of Mickey Hargitay and not remember that from 1958--1964 he was married to one of the most gorgeous sex-goddesses that had ever graced the silver screen--Jayne Mansfield. He even became more well known as "Mr. Jayne Mansfield" rather than Mr. Mickey Hargitay. Mansfield was dubbed "the poor man's Marilyn Monroe" and "the smartest dumb blonde ever" as she purported to possess an IQ of 163.

There are a couple of fascinating--and ironically gruesome--aspects of her life that I wanted to include in this article because of her relationship to this film's lead. The fascinating will lead to the gruesome as you will read in the following facts. Mansfield was a professed Satanist. In fact, Anton LeVay proclaimed her a High Priestess in the Church Of Satan in 1966--after her divorce from Hargitay, and during a time when she was involved romantically with her abusing and blackmailing lawyer Sam Brody. She apparently went to LeVay to receive various Satanic blessings regarding her children's health and financial matters.

To her, the blessings always worked, and she willingly became a Satanist declaring that it was the only religion that ever really answered to her spirituality. However, Brody always accompanied her to Satanic Mass and various rituals, and was always very disruptive and obnoxious during the ceremonies. Once, after a particularly rude demonstration on Brody's part, LeVay cursed him, saying that he would die within a year.

About a year later, Mansfield, her three children, Brody, a couple of Chihuahua dogs and their driver were traveling between a small town and New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. She was performing small song-and-joke shows in various hotels as her movie career and pretty much dried up a few years earlier. They were driving along a lonely two-lane blacktop that sported narrow shoulders and treacherous curves. The driver, wanting to get to New Orleans quickly--it was already nearly 2 a.m., and they had to be up early in New Orleans that morning for a talk show on which Mansfield was appearing--was speeding along at about 80 miles an hour.

Unbeknownst to them, a slow-moving insecticide fogging truck, with an 18-wheeler plundering even slower behind it, was just up ahead. It was June, the humidity had already created a bed of low-lying fog that when paired with the mist from the insecticide truck made visibility extremely poor. As they rounded a particularly sharp turn they slammed into the fog-shrouded and unseen semi-truck in front of them. The car was a big 1966 or 67 Buick Delta 225--a horse of a car--and it's also a make that did not come as a convertible.

However, when reporters and policemen showed up to the horrible scene of carnage, the car was reported as a convertible as the force of the collision had peeled the hood all the way back to the trunk. The three front seat passengers--Mansfield, Brody and their driver were killed instantly--or so we hope in Mansfield's case as her death was the most gruesome. At first it was reported that she was decapitated--as a reporter had taken a picture shortly after the accident where a blonde wig she had been wearing was visible--bloody and limp in the front seat. Eyewitnesses immediately thought that this was her head--shorn from her body. However, she actually suffered a worse fate.

She was not decapitated, but instead she was more like "scalped", with the top part of her head to just above her eyes peeled completely off--skin, skull, brains and all. The three children in the back--including a then 3 1/2 year old Mariska Hargitay of Law And Order: Special Victims Unit fame--were unharmed. Seemingly, LeVay’s curse on Brody had worked, but in an ironic and unfortunate twist also claimed the life of Mansfield.

Apparently the estranged Mickey still had deep feelings for Jayne at the time of her death, as the mondo documentary The Wild, Wild World Of Jayne Mansfield features the still grieving Hargitay taking viewers on a tour of the "Pink Palace" where they lived in Hollywood. On a lighter aside, Mariska Hargitay took up her father's love of bodybuilding and released a series of exercise tapes in the 1990's. But, I digress--back to the flick...

This film was supposedly loosely based on the writings of the Marquis De Sade. No, you say emphatically! Oh yeah, it's true--about as true as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Another interesting fact is that it's filmed in "Psychovision"--perhaps the first and only flick to sport this filmic gimmick.

Also, as you may have noticed Bloody Pit Of Horror sports many cast members as "so-and-so as" AKA's. The same thing works for the director as well. Massimo Pupillo--as "Max Hunter" helmed this little bit 'o Eurotrash heaven, and in keeping with the "so-and-so and such-and-such as" theme, I think my earlier title suggestions fit right in. Howzabout this: Bloody Pit Of Horror as Oily Pit Of Horror or Bloody Pit Of Oil--yeah, I think it works, and when you viddy the scene of Hargitay oiling up his self-proclaimed perfect body you'll agree too!

My source for this article is the exceptional Something Weird Special Edition DVD, which I received in the Something Weird Box Of Blood compilation. The print is digitally remastered and crystal clear, with the colors lush and deep.

The disc includes the original theatrical trailer, deleted footage which includes the alternate US title A Tale Of Torture and different opening-- hilarious scenes of the crew setting up shots replete with one of a guy in a knight suit who can't seem to stand up under the weight (this scene also sports the jaunty little polka tune mentioned earlier--only in the deleted scene the song skips!), and a couple of longer exposition scenes.

The disc also includes a couple of classic B-rated shorts including a clip from the mondo cheapie Primitive Love with Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay and extremely un-funny Italian comedy duo Franco and Ciccio, and another called Cover Girl Slaughter which is a loving and tongue-in-cheek look behind the scenes of sleazy B-rated horror fare. An excellently cool gallery of exploitation art featuring lurid horror and XXX poster images and Horrorama radio spot rarities round out this extras-packed disc. The film's runtime is a nicely paced 74 minutes.

I highly recommend picking up this disc, and if you acquire the entire box set you will also receive two other double feature DVDs with Blood Suckers paired with Blood Thirst and Carnival Of Blood with Curse Of The Headless Horseman. All discs feature different shorts--the Blood Suckers/Blood Thirst disc has an exceptionally funny one titled The Horny Vampire, and different exploitation art galleries and radio spots.