Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum *AP

When I was in around fourth or fifth grade, I learned about Michael Jackson in music class. We listened to "Thriller" and learned about a man named Vincent Price. Apparently Vincent Price was a well-known horror actor. Thus, our music teacher forced us to watch a film called The Pit and the Pendulum. It was amazing. And horrifyingly scary. In the tradition of me, I decided that I would read the Poe story and re watch the movie in book form. That was a lie. Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" is absolutely nothing like the movie. Though, it too is amazing in a completely different sort of way. I think it is easier to connect with the movie because it has a family aspect to the story. It has feelings that most of us can relate to. Whereas in the story, the character is in Spain, ready to die in the inquisition. I admire the story character for his calmness. He faced death with a clear mind and got out of it. I guess the movie character did that too, but the man in the movie was not locked in a cold dungeon for hours, he did not keep getting drugged secretly, and he did not have to face a pit so unknowingly. The man in the movie saw the torture center from the torturer himself, whilst the man in the book was literally left in the dark. The book character could have died several times just by walking around. Had the narrator not fallen with his head in the pit, he would have walked right into it. In the movie, the man was taken into the pit, locked up, forced to be in the pendulum, and then I'm pretty sure he used the rats like in the book and somehow knocked the bad guy into the pit after he was free. Don't quote me on that though. Anyway the man in the book was smart enough to use the rats even though he was about to die, and then he refused to commit suicide into the pit when there was no other way of escaping the closing walls. Thank goodness the French man came to save him. All in all, I thought both the story and the movie were good, but they are good in different ways. They contrast from each other so much that I barely even relate them to each other now that I've read the story.