matched) by the markedly greater fluidity of camera movement. House of Usher seemed unsure of how to cope with the rush of action as Madeline returned from the grave; The Pit and the Pendulum has no such hesitations. From the great sequence in which Steele lures Price down into the crypt to the finale…its action is terrific." Tim Lucas, in reviewing the film's DVD release in 2001, wrote, "Benefitting from the box-office success of House of Usher, Pit is a more elaborate production and features some of the definitive moments of the AIP Corman/Poe series." Glenn Erickson, reviewing the DVD on his DVD Savant website, noted, "Roger Corman's second Edgar Allan Poe adaptation is a big improvement on his first, House of Usher… Remembered as a first-rate chiller by every kid who saw it, Pit and the Pendulum upped the ante for frantic action and potential grue…" Recent critical opinion of the film is not all positive. Of the 22 reviews included in a Rotten Tomatoes survey of critics regarding the title, 14% reflect negative reactions. FilmCritic.com opines that the film "...is quite a disappointment...In the end, it feels like one of [Corman's] rush jobs, which of course, it was." The film was selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Influence The critical and popular success of The Pit and the Pendulum persuaded AIP's Arkoff and Nicholson to produce more Edgar Allan Poe-based horror films on a regular basis. The films that followed, all directed by Corman, were Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963, actually based on the novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Tim Lucas has argued that the film had a large impact on many Italian horror films that followed. Lucas noted, "It takes Corman's Freudian theories even further with a nightmarish flashback sequence that plants the seeds of Nicholas's breakdown, and would prove particularly influential on the future course of Italian horror — an influence that can be seen even in productions of the 1970s (Deep Red) and 1980s (A Blade in the Dark)." Writer K. Lindbergs has noted an "obvious influence" on Antonio Margheriti's Castle of Blood (1964) and its remake, Web of the Spider (1970). Screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi acknowledged that