This critically acclaimed TV thriller is, of course, the show that popularized torture on the small screen, but for the most part, the victims were all men. Oh, women would get tied up plenty on the show over the years, but it wasn't until the 9th season that they gave us what we really wanted to see. And this time the show paid off big time with an ultra-rare strappado scene, where agent Kate Morgan (Yvonne Strahovski) is hoisted off the ground with her arms tied behind her back and tortured. If you watch the scene carefully, it's certainly likely that a stunt double was used, since the scene is in partial silhouette, but in this hi-res promotional still released by Fox, it clearly shows Strahovski tied and hanging in that uncomfortable bondage position. At any rate, it's a killer scene, lasting more than a few minutes, and besides the strappado, she's also slashed with a knife, zapped with electric shock and nearly gets an electric drill to her skull before getting away. Can't get much better than that on TV! VIDEO LINK

Addams Family, The (1991)    R

Angelica Houston's Morticia Addams is comically racked at the end of this movie.

Natasha Henstridge is suspended by her wrists (along with her male companion) in a fairly long scene at the end. A psycho mutant creature goes after them, and at one point goes after her with a knife, but for the most part, creature's efforts are directed toward torturing the guy, leaving Natasha to mostly struggle and sway and react to the goings-on. The are several nice shots of Natasha, but the scene is somewhat dimly lit and film's frenetic editing reduces most of them to just a few seconds each. Bonus points for the attractive victim and for showing her really hanging suspended, although it might have been a stunt woman in some of the long shots.

I love it when a scene really pays off.  Like in Barbarian Queen II when Lana Clarkson escapes only to get re-captured and put back on the rack again.  As a pervert, I usually expect disappointment - the dud scene with the great build up that lets you down.  The whipping that is stopped before it gets started.  The racking that ends before the wheel is turned more than one notch. Adventures of Hajii Baba is the rare movie that pays off.  Elaine Stewart is tied to a wooden stick and suspended off the ground.  When she is rescued by none other than John Derek, the two are quickly re-captured and our lovely lady gets strung right back up.  If only she were wearing something more revealing... VIDEO LINK

Akelarre    (1984)    S, R

This rare Spanish movie features an intense scene in which a naked woman (Silvia Munt) is balanced on a short perch and stretched with 4 separate ropes tied to her limbs, each attached to 4 separate rollers. In that way, it's more of a drawing and quartering torture than the traditional torture rack. The woman is very attractive and appears to be in quite a bit of pain. I just recently learned there's more Inquisition torture in this movie, including a scene involving strappado, which is hard to find on film. She is lifted up by her wrists which are tied behind her back, and a weight is tied to her ankles to increase her pain. She appears to be suffering quite a bit. Both excellent scenes. DOWNLOAD LINK

In this TV crime drama, Kate (played by Wrenn Schmidt) is attacked and overpowered by an intruder in her home. When we see her next, she is hanging suspended by her wrists from a ceiling lamp while the villain casually talks to her as she silently dangles, mouth gagged with a thin cleave. Eventually he moves closer to her and nonchalantly gives a push and watches her body helplessly spin around. He takes out her gag, and she defiantly spits on her captor, who then kills her by snapping her neck using a headlock. A very good mainstream scene, and the actress is shown truly suspended throughout the scene. VIDEO LINK

Ava Gardner, one of the most glamorous women in Hollywood, has a suspension scene in this Italian war drama. About an hour into the film, she is hoisted off the ground by her wrists while Dirk Bogarde is forced to watch. We initially see her suspended in long shot, and it's only a few seconds long, but it appears to be really her. From then on, her character is only shown hanging from an angle that doesn't fully show her face, so it's possible a stunt woman was employed for these shots. A hard movie to track down, but worth it to see one of the silver screen's classic leading ladies in a torture scene. VIDEO LINK

This one falls into the "a crappy rack scene is better than no rack scene at all" category.  Here's the details:  girl wearing robes gets stretched on a horizontal rack by a committee of inquisitors.  The winch is at her feet.  While she grimaces is pain and passes out, her elbows are bent the whole time.

Wearing only a leather bikini bottom, Lana Clarkson is captured and put on a vertical rack.  The stretching device is a complicated Rube Goldberg contraption that is not discernable by the viewer, but every time the torturer turns the wheels, a series of wacky noises and sounds ensues as Clarkson feigns pain.  Her arms are fairly taut, and she is mostly in a spread-eagled pose.  Camera shots offer full frontal and side views.

As in the first Barbarian Queen, Lana Clarkson again finds herself captured and put on the rack.  Like the first film, the rack is vertical.  In the first scene, Clarkson is shackled wearing a leather bikini, which is promptly stripped from her by King Ankaris.  Her arms are not very taut although Clarkson feigns pain each time the wheel is turned.  In the second scene, taking place after Clarkson has escaped and is recaptured, her arms are taut, she is again topless (but for some reason, her navel is mostly hidden), and she is sweating and appears in pain.

Battle Beyond the Stars    (1980)    S

Underrated is an adjective that is frequently used to describe this schlocky Roger Corman space opera.  I have to disagree - I think it's underrated for a very good reason.  It does, however, get bonus points for having the aliens string up the heroine.  You can keep your shiny black floating and humming hypodermic needle orb - give us old fashioned bondage (that's a Star Wars reference for those of you who missed it).  Anyways, she's wearing her space outfit and there's smoke coming up through a grate.  I guess there's a lot of dry ice floating around on outer space vehicles in the future. VIDEO LINK

(Episode 3.19 "Double Edged") A young warrior woman (Kristy Wright) bent on vengeance is captured by the villain King Zad. After questioning her in the dungeon he decides to execute her by having her torn apart by vertical stretching in the public square. She is tied arms overhead, suspended by her wrists. Legs spread and tied to a cement block. There are lots of great close ups of her face showing much anguish and her stocking feet being lifted off the ground. VIDEO LINK

Beatrice Cenci    (Freda, 1956)    R

In the version directed by Riccardo Freda, two women are stretched vertically in a dungeon.  Unfortunately, they are fully clothed and the camera only shows each tortured woman from the waist up so we get no sense of the body being stretched except for the taut arms and grimaces of pain.  The device for stretching is a capstan-like wheel operating by two men, much like the rack scene in Desert Warrior. VIDEO LINK

Similar to the earlier Freda version, in the Lucio Fulcio take on this classic murder tale of the Inquisition era, Beatrice Cenci played by the lovely Adrienne Larussa gets stretched vertically and has a torniquet applied to her head.  Unfortunately, we don't get treated to any full body shots and Ms. Larussa is fully clothed during the ordeal.  Still a good scene nonetheless. VIDEO LINK

One of the real classic mainstream suspension scenes, not to be missed. Three attractive sisters are tied up by their demented cousin. He has them naked, lying on tables. Each one of them have their wrists bound with leather straps and he snarls a metal O ring to a heavy hook to lift and suspend them (as cows in the slaughterhouse where he worked). One of them is shown being dragged off the table and her ankles are shown bound by a leather strap. Each of the gagged women are shown hanging on the hooks on close ups. He lowers the oldest sister onto a surgical table and is about to slice into her skin but he chickens out. The doorbell rings and while he is away one of the sisters is able to slip her wrists from the straps and free the other two. Very cool scene. Too bad the whole movie didn't live up the quality of this one scene, but definitely one to check out. VIDEO LINK

Big Bird Cage, The    (1972)    S

I guess you'd call this a sequel to Big Doll House.  I don't know.  Anyways, model Anitra Ford finds her acting debut lands herself in a Filipino women-in-prison flick.  After an attempt at escape, she is punished by being suspended by her hair.  If you dig this sort of thing, you might want to check out Caged Heat 2. VIDEO LINK

In this classic women-in-prison movie shot in the Phillipines, Pat Woodall is suspended by her wrists and flogged.  As a flogging scene, this one is probably below par, but as a suspension scene, I give this one a high rating.  Woodall is wearing only a small bikini bottom, though hair obscures her breasts.  There are several full body shots showing the actress hanging at least a foot off the ground, so you know they were not faking the suspension. VIDEO LINK

This parody of Nazi films is strictly bottom of the barrel stuff. Bad acting, bad production vales, fake accents...simply put, this movie is garbage. The rack scene is the one saving grace, but even it smacks of phoniness. The victim is at least topless, and she gives a decent performance being briefly stretched, but the emphasis is on the 2 bad actors hamming it up playing Nazi interrogators and she's barely seen. At the conclusion she's given a flaming hot brand to the foot. Avoid this one at all costs. VIDEO LINK

(aka  Altar of Blood, Scream of the Demon Lover, Ivanna) The premise here is genius: 19th century setting, a woman goes to the remote castle of a renowned scientist to be his student and assistant. The scientist's disfigured brother lives in the secret chambers and corridors within the castle. On two occasions, the evil brother either poisons or gases the woman (played by Erna Schurer) and takes her to a torture chamber to be put on the rack. Both scenes are brief. In the first scene, the woman is naked save for a cloth that obscures her navel. The camera view is from the waist up. The rack is a horizontal model. In the second scene, she is naked, but an object obscures the crotch area. Again, the navel is obscured. In both scenes, no stretching is involved, but the woman is threatened by a hot poker. When she tells the scientist of these strange nocturnal occurrences, it seems from the tone of her voice like she enjoyed the rack. VIDEO LINK

Very poor rack scene.  The vertical rack is cheap and historically inaccurate - it looks like two crossed two-by-fours operated by engine pullers.  The victim is unattractive and is wearing an unbuttoned army fatigue shirt.  As she moans in pain, she reveals very ugly, brown-stained teeth.  All in all, a bad scene.  As for the wrist suspension, it's the kidnapped ballerina who gets strung up wearing a one-piece bathing suit while the dwarf crashes cymbals around her.

Set in the 17th Century, a woman accused of witchcraft is tortured by Howard Vernon.  In the rack scene, the rack is horizontal and the woman is wearing a blue dungeon robe which is torn in several places.  Her arms are taut and she appears to be in pain.  Not a bad scene. VIDEO LINK

In this French action/horror movie, the gorgeous Olivia Bonamy (with her hair dyed bright red) plays a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-type heroine. In a unique twist, she gets tortured by being forced to wear spiked shackles on her wrists, then hung from the rafters so that the spikes will cut into her flesh and she'll bleed to death. There's lots of shots of blood running down her arms and into vat filled with more blood down below her. Not a bad scene, although her arms aren't fully extended in some of the closer angles which shows they were faking it. There are a few nice full figure shots, however, where you can see the actress is really suspended. VIDEO LINK

Mickey Hargitay plays a man possessed by the spirit of The Crimson Executioner.  In the rack scene, the woman is wearing a very short tunic dress, split down the middle, but not revealing breasts or navel.  Her legs are apart, but her wrists are tied together.  The rack is a horizontal model.  Hargitay is manic as he turns the wheel.  The woman's screams are obviously dubbed and are out-of-sync with her facial expressions. VIDEO LINK

Another hair-hanging in a women's prison movie, similar to Caged Heat II and The Big Bird Cage, but not done nearly as well. The biggest problem, besides that the victim (Bernadette Williams) is not tied up at all except for the rope attached to her hair, is her totally emotionless performance. No screams of pain, not even any grimacing. I actually thought her character was dead during this segment, except she's alive and recovering in bed in the next scene. Curiously disappointing.

As punishment in a women's prison, Jewel Shepherd is hung up off the ground by her hair (yes!) in a blinding rainstorm and left to hang there overnight. The initial hoisting looks like it was probably a mannequin because there's no movement at all, with close up shots of the real Jewel intercut in the scene. I still dig this scene because how often do you get to see someone hung up by their own hair? Plus Jewel Shepherd was pretty damn hot back in the day.

I didn't see this whole movie, but it seems like the plot revolves around females slaves working in mines.  Anyways, one of the aforementioned women is singled out, has her top removed, and is strung up by the wrists with rope and whipped.  She is only wearing loincloth rags around her waist.  Unfortunately, we don't get a full body shot so the suspension is only implied.

Bobbie Phillips, the titular Dark Angel, is suspended from the ceiling by her wrists and her legs are lashed together while wearing a tight, form-fitting body suit. She has a great butt, and you see a lot of it (her butt stays inside her pants, but they are almost painted on) as she writhes while being tortured with some sort of futuristic electro-prod. The woman she's protecting, Dougherty, is tied to a chair at wrists and ankles. Can't recall if she's gagged or not, but Phillips definitely isn't. Scene ends when Dougherty gets free and mops the floor with the assembled baddies. Not a bad SF flick overall, and Phillips wears the black bodysuit throughout. VIDEO LINK

Charlie's Angels    (2011)    S

(Episode 1:01: "Angel with a Broken Wing") In the premiere episode of this TV remake, Eve (played by Minka Kelly) is suspended by her wrists and tortured for information. She gets zapped with a stun gun first and then when she tries to put up a brave front, she's socked in the face for her insolence. Just when things are really getting good, one of the angels comes to her rescue and the 2 defeat the bad guys. Nice while it lasted. VIDEO LINK

Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Santa Suit") A nice scene where Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) is tied suspended by her wrists right near the beginning of the show. It carries on later where the bad guy has turned off the heat so she has to dangle in the cold. There's a few shots here and there where you see her feet aren't touching the floor, and at least one where it's an obvious stunt woman. But in other, closer shots of Sarah, it's apparent that they're faking it, since her arms aren't totally outstretched and she seems to be standing on something. Still, you can't much a much hotter victim than Yvonne Strahovski, and she looks good, especially when gagged with tape during the first half. VIDEO LINK

Clash of the Titans (2010)    (2010)    S

This slick remake of the 1981 classic is rather frustrating for fans of damsels in distress. The stunningly gorgeous Alexa Davalos is suspended by her wrists, but only glimpsed in fleetingly brief snippets throughout a very long sequence. Instead, the stupid director seems to care only about quick editing and computer generated special effects of flying horses and monsters, leaving his beautiful victim as mere window dressing instead of the main focus. There's some outstanding individual views of Alexa, but nearly all of her shots last only a few seconds each. My advice: skip the actual movie and concentrate instead on the following edit, which improves things considerably. DOWNLOAD LINK

Dagon (2001)    S

This film by horrormeister and bondage lover Stuart Gordon (who has tied-up women in practically all of his movies) stars the very fine and very naked Raquel Meroño. First she is staked out on a stone altar and numerous tiny cuts inflicted just to get her dripping but not overly so. She is then attached by the wrists to a horizontal bar and weights attached to the ankles. Ever so slowly she is lowered into a deep chasm down to the sea where the tentacled god Dagon awaits. Her boyfriend attempts a rescue and after she has been submerged and raped by Dagon he hauls her back up. She begs him to kill her but Dagon acts first and pulls her back in, leaving her hands still manacled to the bar. What a happy ending.

In the middle of this so-so horror film, there's a quick 5-second shot of a woman (Kathryn Weisbeck) being stretched on the rack, which comes out of nowhere and just as quickly is over. Nice eye candy, but the scene is about 5 minutes too short. Just a tease. VIDEO LINK

Scream queen Brinke Stevens get stretched as part of a Grand Guignol-style theater performance in this direct-to-video cheapie.  I dig Brinke Stevens, so I've got to say...she should've been naked.  You can't really discern the rack, either.  It's a shame - I would've built them one for free.  I would recommend this video only for diehard Brinke Stevens fans.

I love this flick!  You know a movie is going to be good when it stars both Tom Selleck and Vic Diaz(!), and is filmed and produced in the Phillipines.  I'll spare you a plot outline.  In a nutshell, here's the premise:  witch coven forces women to endure painful initiation rites, which brings us to our two scenes of interest.  The first occurs seconds after the opening credits.  A topless women is suspended by one wrist over wooden stakes.  Since it's only one wrist, I'm not digging it too much, but there is a bit of strappado action as the henchman roughly lowers the women closer to the spikes.  The second scene doesn't involve suspension or stretching per se, but it is a good AOH scenes.  Check out the pics.  Another good thing about this movie is that it is often shown on TV.  Censored, of course, but not too badly. VIDEO LINK 1 and 2

In this Christopher Lambert drama set during the 16th Century Spanish Inquisition, there are 2 rack scenes. A woman is tied to a rack, where she's tortured with a red hot poker in an amazingly realistic-looking burning sequence. The Inquisitor is about to apply the poker to her face when's he's interrupted by Lambert. Under pressure to get his job done, the Inquisitor nods for the racking to begin, and she is then swiftly stretched until she dies in a disappointingly brief 8-second rack sequence. Geez, couldn't they have drawn that out a little bit? Later in the film, Lambert interrupts another racking in progress; this time the victim is his own wife. It's another scene that should have been longer. Just think how much fun we could have had if Lambert hadn't been such a damn busybody. VIDEO LINK

A woman is stretched on an x-shaped vertical rack to get her to reveal the location of Ricardo Montalban.  If you notice, two men are operating the winch - yowww!  The interrogator does the old "here, have some water...NOT" trick found in so many torture scenes, including Barbarian Queen.  She is then burned with a hot iron.  Someone's Fantasy Island vacation didn't turn out the way they thought it would!  Too bad the scanning is bad on this print - I need to find a letterboxed copy of this, if one exists.  VIDEO LINK

Near the end of this horror film, the villain (played with over-the-top maniacal glee by British disc jockey Mike Raven) plans an unpleasant death for a sweet young thing after whom he has lusted (Marguerite Hardiman) and, unfortunately, for the young man who has saved her from the dire fate that had been planned for her. The rack here is a vertical model, and is designed for a slow and painful death, rather than the usual interrogation. It's an inventive device, as it appears to be powered by an animated corpse--sister of the damsel, who had herself rejected the villain's advances, and had been murdered for it. This is a nice long scene with several agonized close ups of the lovely victim, and would have been an all-time classic if not for the fact that there's a man alongside her during the ordeal. As a bonus, we get to see a flaming escape at the conclusion for our hero and heroine. VIDEO LINK

"Power of Kroll" Episode.  The Tom Baker version of Doctor Who and his two assistants are sentenced to death upon a rack-like devise, the stretching mechanism for which are wet vines that tighten as they dry.  One of the assistants is Romana played by Mary Tamm.  Since Ms. Tamm shares this torture-cum-capital punishment with two men, there, to use the proper damsel-in-distress argot, a high putz-factor.  That being said, although she is fully clothed, she does appear to be quite uncomfortable. VIDEO LINK

Near the end of this silent classic, Mary Astor is taken to a torture chamber in the tower where she is tied to one of those giant wheel racks.  She is wearing a loose nightgown-like dress.  I love this scene, not so much for the rack sequence, but for the great sets and John Barrymore's superb acting.  Barrymore breaks in to the torture chamber and knocks out the torturer.  When the Borgia's come up to watch the torture, Barrymore pretends to be torturer.  The genius of his performance is when he is able to transform himself back and forth between Don Juan and the torturer with merely his facial expressions as he turns his head from looking at Mary Astor on the rack and back to Lucretia Borgia. VIDEO LINK

Rhona Mitra (wearing a skintight outfit) is hoisted off the ground by her wrists and suspended for a few minutes while she's tortured by one of the bad guys. He starts off by dumping a can of beer over her head, but things get rougher when he smacks her hard in the face and then several times in the stomach. He lets her spin around a bit in pain before letting her down. An excellent suspension torture scene with a very attractive victim. VIDEO LINK

A bondage photographer goes to his great-grandfather's castle to shoot a bondage mag layout, decides to turn it into a vampire disco, real vampires show up, chaos ensues.  Anyways, the rack scene is part of the aforementioned bondage magazine photo shoot.  The vidcap is of a shot that was supposed to be from the photographers point of view.  In the movie, it was upside-down (I guess fancy cameras do that...who knew?), but I took the liberty of flipping it over to avoid confusion.

During a satanic ritual scene, a woman wearing only panties is tied to a horizontal rack that resembles more of a farm implement than something that came out of the inquisition.  Apparently, this particular satanic cult likes to stretch their virgin sacrifices before they kill them.  Unfortunately, even though the victim feigns pain, her arms never get taut and she does not appear to be stretched.  The cult leader ends the torture prematurely by producing an official satanic sacrificial knife and proceeding to cut up our victim, which is the point where the scene crosses over from belonging on my page to belonging on someone else's page.

A girl is tied to a wooden rack set at a forty-five degree angle.  She is fully clothed.  While she is never stretched, she does endure the Chinese water torture as water is dripped on her face while she's tied to the rack, and there are some nice shots of her face grimacing in pain.  A man previously knocked unconscious in the scene wakes up and unties her. VIDEO LINK

This little known Egyptian film (not even in the IMDB) is about a famous dancer in the 1940s (Nadia El Gendy) who is captured and interrogated during the war. During the last 10 minutes of the movie, she is subjected to a number of tortures, beginning with being stretched on a standing vertical rack. You don't see any full body shots during her interrogation, but she does some impressive screaming. This is followed by burning with acid, drowning torture and an aborted firing squad at the conclusion of the film. Not the best looking victim you've ever seen, but an interesting and very rare find. VIDEO LINK

Haven't seen this one. In this comic parody of "Pit and the Pendulum," Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) is put on the rack in the dungeon. Her ankles are in a set of stocks and her wrists tied to ropes. (When released, her arms have stretched so her hands are at her knees.) VIDEO LINK

In this classic Girls in Jungle Camp Prison sleaze, there's a scene where 2 female inmates (Ajita Wilson and Cintia Lodetti) are punished for getting into a scrum. They are put on display in front of the rest of the camp, hung back to back in a suspended spread-eagle from a wooden platform. I have to admit I had watched this scene many times and only noticed Ajita, but you can see the other girl from the back in some long shots. This footage was re-dubbed and used again in the 1985 rip-off Savage Island, which edits in new footage of American star Linda Blair. VIDEO LINK

Beautiful blonde Andrea Roth is taken at gunpoint to a boarded-up theater where she's next shown suspended a few inches above the stage by an overhead rope around a belt binding her wrists. Wearing a brown miniskirted suit and pumps, she screams and kicks but the bad guy just calmly gives her a spin, and she can only helplessly twirl around in circles by her bound wrists. He follows this up by squirting water on her and then giving her a jolt with a stun gun. After she passes out, he dumps a bucket of water over her to wake her up for more torture. Deciding to move on to the really rough stuff, he takes a plastic bag and secures it over her head with duct tape, but the good guy comes to the rescue right in the nick of time, dammit. Andrea's a real trooper, since that's really her hanging up there suspended and not a stunt performer. The entire segment lasts for 4 or 5 minutes, too. An excellent mainstream scene, not to be missed. VIDEO LINK 1 and 2

Flight of the Lost Balloon    (1961)    R

Mala Powers is put on a horizontal rack to try to get information from a man chained to a wall.  She is wearing a red sleeveless dress.  Her ankles are placed in a stock-like bottom half, and her wrists are tied with ropes to the wheel.  After a few turns by the torturer, a second man in a top hat attacks the torturer.  Powers remains on the rack until the end of the fight - actually, after the torturer is subdued, the man unlocks the other man on the wall before releasing Powers.  Her arms are taut and she appears to be in pain. VIDEO LINK

I don't know anything about this one except for a still I found in a book. According to Wikipedia, The film is considered to be lost. What a shame.

(aka: The Chambermaid's Dream) Inquisition scene with a girl on a horizontal rack   She's wearing a weird fur number a la Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. Doesn't appear to be any actual stretching, but she's burned a few times with a hot iron. The scene kind of loses its focus when an orgy breaks out in the middle of all the torture and screaming. VIDEO LINK

(aka    Nikutai no Mon, Le Professioniste, Barriere de Chair) Japanese prostitutes torture the hell out of each other throughout this Seijun Suzuki classic.  In the suspension scene, Nogawa Yumiko gets strung up and whipped.  She is left hanging by her wrists while the other prostitutes eat lunch underneath her.  Nogawa Yumiko is naked, but dark shadows strategically edit out most of the nudity. VIDEO LINK

(aka Last Orgy of the Third Reich, Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler) Let me preface this by saying that I don't really like Nazi torture flicks at all.  In theory, medieval Inquisition movies should offend me just as much, but for some sick and twisted reason they don't.  I dig the dark dungeon settings - the Inquisitors, hooded executioners, the presiding scribe, flaming torches, splintery wood racks, rusty chains.  Nazi stuff, on the other hand, just leaves me feeling a little sick to my stomach.  Whatever.  I'm not going to analyze it - everybody has their scruples.  That being said, I dig the suspension scene in this flick.  Two naked chicks suspended over a vat of acid.  One is dropped in the acid.  What I dig is the end of the scene:  they threaten to drop the blond in the acid.  They lower her, but in a series of jerky drops, similar to the strappado torture.  I have never seen a flick that featured strappado torture.  This is probably the closest you'll get. VIDEO LINK

In this last beach movie that takes place nowhere near a beach, the rack scene is in the chamber of horrors at a haunted wax museum.  The rack is a historically accurate horizontal model operated by a number of hooded torturers.  The producers of this movie were too cheap to use real wax museum props, so the woman on the rack is real.  A monster movie magazine evidently featured promo stills of this movie that featured the rack scene prominently, stills from shots that were not in the movie.  If anyone knows which magazine this was, or knows where I can find those stills, please let me know.

"The Friendly Physician" Episode.  In this episode, Vito Scotti appears on the island and takes the castaways to his nearby island where he chains them up in the dungeon of his castle.  Ginger is tied to a rack.  Unfortunately, there is no stretching or torture.

In order to get Thea to marry him, King Eurystheus comes up with a dandy plan: he'll just dangle her friend Alcinoe (Wandisa Guida) over a pit full of snakes until she changes her mind. She is (sort of) tied arms above and lowered into the pit a couple of times. She looks as if she is holding the loops on the rope but then I guess we would too if we were being lowered into a snake pit.

This Indian "Bollywood" film features a mediocre rack scene. It's not so much a traditional rack but rather a woman on the ground being stretched on both ends by a couple of pulleys, similar to The Tiger Woman. There were a few debits to the scene that made it not so hot. Number one, the victim is a matronly middle-aged woman, and not that attractive. She's also wearing a flowing white toga that makes her appear overweight. And lastly, her elbows are still bent during the scene, so she's obviously not being stretched tightly enough to cause any real pain.

Based on a true story, this hard-to-find black and white Italian drama is about a 60-year-old Tuscan nun accused of witchcraft in 1594. She is twice given the strappado treatment, with her wrists tied behind her and hoisted off the ground. In both instances, the victim is shown in either partial of full silhouette, so it's hard to see much detail, but there is no question that whoever is up there is definitely hanging in that fashion. Lots of screaming, but not a particularly "fun" scene, mainly because of the matronly appearance of the victim. VIDEO LINK

Here's a real rarity: an actual strappado suspension scene, probably the first of its kind in a mainstream film with an A-list actress (Natalie Portman). Portman didn't do the actual stunt, though. It was performed instead by a Cirque du Soleil acrobat. Still, it's an impressive scene, and Portman appears to be really suffering as she is hung up with a coarse rope behind her back. She is lifted by a wood wheel and ropes and we see her feet dangling above the ground. She screams her lungs out in pain. She is put back onto her tiptoes for additional questioning. She insists that she is telling the truth which leads to another lift up.

Grimm (Episode 2:3 "Bad Moon Rising")     (2012)    S

An excellent episode of this TV horror series features not one but two suspension scenes with beautiful teenage actress Maddie Hasson.  After being kidnapped and her mouth duct taped, she is lowered by her wrists into a deep, dark well and left there overnight, since it is dark when she is put in the well and light out when the bad guys raise her back up.  After being stripped, force-cleaned and tied spreadeagle in some sort of ritual, she is again seen hanging by her wrists (and again tape-gagged) inside the well before finally being rescued by agents.  Both suspension scenes appear to be real, which means she really was hanging by her wrists for at least a short time during filming. VIDEO LINK

First, let me just say that I hate cartoons.  And at the top of my most hated list is Heavy Metal. So to be honest, I never watched closely enough to see that the Taarna character is bound to a device that is engineered to stretch.  Unfortunately, no stretching occurs.

In the episode "Two Men and a Baby" (H65/406) that aired during the fourth season of this syndicated series, Kimberley Joseph as Nemesis is suspended by her wrists over a cliff from an overhanging tree branch.  She is wearing a midriff revealing outfit. VIDEO LINK

Rutger Hauer ties Jennifer Jason Leigh between a semi tractor and trailer, then slowly puts the big rig in gear.  Wasn't this a Red Sovine song?  Anyways, things don't end well for Ms. Leigh.  "Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight!" VIDEO LINK

Horror    (2002)    R

A young woman (Lizzy Mahon) is drugged and kept a prisoner by her parents. In an apparent hallucinogenic state, she images herself being stretched on the rack. There are plenty of of closeups of her limbs being stretched and lots of nice screaming, too. The scene lasts a few minutes. Definitely worth checking out. DOWNLOAD LINK

In this classic Italian WIP film, there's a brief scene where one of the punished female prisoners is hung suspended from an outdoor wooden platform. If the location is familiar, it's because it's the exact same set they used to suspend a couple of actresses in Escape From Hell, which was shot at the same time as this film with much of the same cast. But what makes this scene special is that the victim is being hung by her thumbs, the only time I've seen this done in a movie. The shot begins with a close up of the rope around her thumb and slowly pans down to her face, then gives us a long shot so we see how she is hanging. Upon close inspection of the angle of her arms, it's obvious the actress is not really suspended by her thumbs, which would have been very dangerous. From then on, there are no further close shots, as she's only glimpsed in the background, and I suspect that's a mannequin in those shots. But I'll give the scene a pass since I appreciate the effort. VIDEO LINK

The rack scene here is a wax display depicting the stretching of Anne Askew.  The wax model is wearing a rough dungeon robe that stops at the top of her breasts.  In a second scene after the wax museum is closed, the robe appears to have shifted and we can see a brief exposure of midriff.  Not a bad scene for it not involving a real person. VIDEO LINK

The rack scene is very brief and is part of a nightmare sequence (or dream sequence, depending on how you look at things).  A women is racked by hooded torturers on a low horizontal rack.  Too bad the view is distance and the scene is short.

Naschy plays the Inquisitor in this scene.  A woman is stretched on a horizontal rack.  The sets are historically accurate.  She is naked, but camera views edit a lot.  The first view is the woman from chest up on the right side.  Then, the camera shifts to the left side view.  The woman is sweating profusely and breathing heavily.  On a head nod cue from the Inquisitor, the torturer swiftly turns the wheel and the woman's body is stretched extremely taut to an angle of about twenty or thirty degrees from the table.  While this stretch is brief, it seems like it had to have been real for that brief moment of the initial stretching.  After a reaction shot of the other judges, the woman is shown again from chest up being stretched, but she does not appear as taut as before.  The tension is then relieved.  The third good shot opens with a close-up of her face, then widens to reveal the whole body, her crotch blocked by the torturer.  Overall, this is one of the better rack scenes around. VIDEO LINK

This movie is filled with multiple rack scenes.  A total of five women are stretched on the rack.  Four are naked, but strategic objects and camera angles edit crotch shots.  One of the women is brutally stretched.  In the last scene, one of the female inquisitors is put on the rack by her male cohorts.  She is topless, but wearing a long skirt that covers the navel.  In the end, voodoo spirit forces turn the wheel and she is stretched.  Our view is a side view clearly showing the armpits.  In all the scenes, the rack is a 45 degree angle model.  I rate this movie high for the quantity of the rack scenes, but not necessarily the quality. VIDEO LINK

In this TV movie, Teri Garr plays Army 1st Lt. Sally Bierston, who was somehow left behind during the evac from Saigon in 1975 and was captured by the NVA. She is sent to a POW camp in the jungle near Hanoi. One scene (about 30 seconds long, shown in flashback) has her hanging by her wrists from a tree in a driving monsoon rain, but since it was made-for-TV (CBS), she's wearing her black POW pajamas (unfortunately).

Invitation to Ruin    (1968)    S

This is a rather brutal scene in an otherwise cartoonish movie.  A woman a suspended with her wrists far apart and whipped.  She is naked, but frontal below-the-waist nudity is edited by the dungeon brazier.  There are full body shots and it is apparently that the actress had to be suspended to film this scene. VIDEO LINK

A young Jewish girl (Macarena Sanz) is tortured on the rack for information about documents found on her person. She tries to deny knowledge, but eventually the pain is too much. Her clothing hides most of her curves but she is clearly attractive, and the screaming and reaction to the twisting gears is great, even subtitled. One minor point - in freeze frame it appears she is holding on to the manacles as she is stretched, rather than having them locked around her wrists. But she is selling the pain so well you don't notice it watching the scene unfold. VIDEO LINK

Directed by Jom Tob Azulay, this arty and atmospheric period piece from Portugal features a fairly decent torture scene.  It begins with a clothed woman tied to a very well-crafted rack in a torture chamber of the inquisition.  Despite the realism of the sets and costumes, only one of her arms is tied to the winch, which greatly diminishes the quality of what could have been a good rack scene.  But just when we are about to give up on this flick, the camera cuts to a naked girl with her wrists tied to a hanging overhead bar, by which she is pulled off her feet.  While this could pass as just another day in a Bally's Health Club, apparently the girl finds this painful. VIDEO LINK

At the beginning of this horror thriller, the unfortunate Julia (Valerie Azlynn) meets a stranger (played by Hercules' Kevin Sorbo!) via the Internet, not knowing that he is a serial killer. He subdues her from behind in her car, winding a wire around her neck, then leads her to his lair. She struggles so he has to smack her in the face, then he ties her wrists together and hoists her off the ground. She dangles for a minute or so, and there are some delicious shots of her frantically kicking at the air. The action is clearly not simulated, as the actress is shown in full shot being suspended by her wrists, as Sorbo watches on closed-circuit camera. She unfortunately manages to free herself, but her problems aren't over, as you'll see over in the Hot Iron Database (Boy, is that a giveaway clue!). VIDEO LINK 1 and 2

In this 12-part Republic serial, Carol (played by Phyllis Coates) is suspended by her wrists over a fire pit by a group of jungle tribesmen. They set it up so that the sun will slowly burn through the vine securing her over the fire, and there's a lot of suspense as the tribesmen do their native dance in a circle around their dangling victim. In the long shots we can see that there really is a woman being hung over the fire, although it's likely a stunt woman in the place of Coates, who is only seen in the tighter shots. In typical serial fashion, she is rescued in the nick of time as the vine burns away, but it's a real nice sequence nonetheless. VIDEO LINK

Kerim, Son of the Sheik    (1962)    R

(aka Retour du Fils du Sheik, Le, Figlio della Sceicco, Il) There is a decent rack scene in this hard-to-find Gordon Scott peplum. Fawzia (played by Cristina Gaioni) is tortured on the rack in front of Kerim to try to get him to talk. Unfortunately he breaks free of his binds and rescues her. The image is a bit washed out in the middle of the screen but this is a very rare print.   VIDEO LINK

I've seen this scene, you've seen this scene, we've all seen this scene.  It's a classic.  Unfortunately, there's not a lot of good full body shots showing Catherine Oxenburg suspended.  That's probably because Ms. Oxenburg didn't want to be suspended, so they used a body double.  Ken, Ken, Ken, what were you thinking?  You would've had a cult fave whether you used Oxenburg or not, so you should have just fired at the first sign of trouble and got someone else who'd let you do all kinds of things to them just to be in your movie.  Oh, well.  Check it out, Catherine Oxenburg in white bra and panties suspended by a rope.  Ba Da Bing!

Last Hour, The    (1991)    S

In this cheesy 90s action thriller, Shannon Tweed, the Queen of the Softcore Erotic Thriller genre, plays a victim who is suspended by her wrists in the middle of a warehouse, to be used as bait for the good guys to come out and rescue her. The movie starts out with her hanging, then flashes back to tell the story leading up to her predicament, so there's over an hour of waiting before we see what happens. This was handled in the usual Hollywood way, with a stunt woman doing the actual suspension while closer shots of Shannon, in which the suspension is faked, are interspersed. And there's a lot of gunplay by the men that dominate the scene, with just fleeting shots every now and then of the woman in bondage. VIDEO LINK

Le Marquis de la Croix    (2012)    R

This is a great torture filled movie, loosely based off the writing of the Marquis de Sade, and directed by Amy Hesketh. It stars Jac Avila as the Marquis and Mila Joya as the gypsy woman Zynga. This movie was filmed in the same dungeon as Maleficarum and uses the same torture rack. In the film, the Marquis bribes prison guards to be given many female prisoners who have death sentences to be tortured in his private cell. We get to see Zynga in many torture scenes. For the rack scene, we get to Mila's character really act out with great emotion. The Marquis uses the rack torture to also interrogate Zynga of her accused crimes. While Zynga is on the rack, the Marquis also whips her feet with a cane to add more torture. There is also a brief rack scene in the end with Amy's character, but I don't want to spoil the ending.

Legend of the Seeker     (2009)    S

(Episode 1:16: "Bloodline") During the opening titles, Denna (Jessica Marais) is punished by being suspended by her wrists. She's mostly shown in close up, but in a few of the shots, you can see the actress really is hanging and not faking it. Worth checking out. VIDEO LINK (Begins at 3:17)

Lethal Games    (1991)    S

This one is hard to find, but worth checking out. Pretty blonde Anne Ricketts is kept tied AOH for darn near half the film, but there's one scene where, after being raped by a lecherous sheriff, she is seen totally suspended by her wrists in an abandoned shack. The camera starts by showing us the rope from the ceiling, then pans completely down her body to show that her wrists are tied and she is hanging limply and swaying in a torn white outfit, her feet dangling several inches off the floor. The scene doesn't last that long, but it's a beautiful image and it's obvious the young actress is really hanging and not faking it at all. VIDEO LINK

License to Kill    (1964)    S

(aka Nick Carter va tout casser) Definitely not the James Bond movie of the same name, this French spy caper features an old-fashioned damsel in distress setpiece, as a woman is literally dangled over a huge cauldron of boiling oil while the bad guys taunt her for information, including a dragon lady villainess complete with cigarette holder. If she doesn't talk, they threaten to turn her into a human french fry. Not many people have seen this one, but it's a lot of fun, and done years before the similar Lois & Clark TV scene with Teri Hatcher. VIDEO LINK

Personally, I think this is a great torture rack scene. It starts off with a babe (Kelsey Matheson) willingly getting strapped to the rack. The guy slowly stretches her, and she sort of enjoys it in a curious way. Then she starts to realize this guy won't stop. The suspense builds and builds as you can see she's really starting to feel the pain. And then suddenly the guy's wife comes in, which startles him so much that he accidentally cranks the rack's controls too much and tightens the rack, snapping a bone through the girl's leg. VIDEO LINK

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman     (1993)    S

("Pheromone, My Lovely" Episode) This classic scene has Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) knocked out and suspended by her wrists over a huge vat of bubbling, boiling acid. She is slowly lowered closer and closer to a horrible death when...wouldn't you know it?...that damn Superman comes to her rescue in the nick of time and ruins all our fun. VIDEO LINK

In the rack scene, a topless woman wearing a dungeon rag around the waist is briefly stretched on a horizontal rack.  For the duration of the stretching, the camera view is from below the breasts and up.  The arms are taut and the woman appears to be in pain.

In this Jess Franco lesbian satanic nun flick, a young and innocent Susan Hemingway is stretched naked on a rack.  The rack is about thirty degrees horizontal to the floor.  She appears to be in pain, and the camera shows shots of her wrists and ankles, bloodied from the shackles, as she is stretched.  She also gets a lit torch to her pussy to persuade her to confess (ouch!). The Jorge Grau version of this movie has no scenes.

I have a fascination with the early days of cinema.  For one, I have this pet theory that the pre-Hayes Code silent era was a gold mine of torture scenes in movies.  Since very little of these works survived, these scenes are unknown, will never be known, and for all intents and purposes never existed.  Another reason for my fascination is that these early motion pictures are insanely weird and out of control.  This particular flick reminds me of a Coffin Joe movie on amphetamines.  I would have loved to have been on the set of Maciste in Hell as the Hell scenes are an orgy of torture and mayhem.  Unfortunately, the pace is so manic and frenetic that you can't really tell what's going on.  The vidcaps I have here are a blink-and-you-missed-it scene of a young female soul being tormented and, you guessed it, suspended by her wrists.

Maciste in King Solomon's Mines    (1964)    R

A woman is racked for information in this Italian sword and sandal epic.  The rack is angled about twenty degrees.  When the woman refuses to devulge the information she is being tortured for, she is sentenced to die by having molten gold poured on her. VIDEO LINK

A Peter Lorre classic, this Dr. Orloff-themed movie is another of my favorites.  The rack scene is actually a performance at a Grand Guignol theater.  Frances Drake, the object of Lorre's obsession, is tied to a wheel rack and stretched.  She is then branded.  She is wearing a white robe, and she does appear to be in pain.  My favorite part of this scene is the look on Peter Lorre's face as he watches the performed torture scene from his own private balcony seat. VIDEO LINK

This film about the Peruvian Inquisition is loaded with torture scenes, all of them involving attractive naked victims. There are too many to mention, but these are the ones that merit inclusion into this database. To begin with, Mariana (Amy Hesketh) is suspended by her wrists and given a vicious whipping. Then Mariana and her lover Francisca (played by Mila Joya) are both separately tortured on the rack. Both rack sequences last a number of minutes and both women appear to be in quite a bit of pain. And finally, in arguably the best scene of the movie, Mariana is suspended off the ground with her with her arms spread wide apart and her legs tied together and lowered over and over onto a plank full of spikes directly onto her feet. Clearly the best Inquisition film of all time, not to be missed.

In this classic witch hunt movie, the stretching scene is not standard.  The woman is topless and wearing dungeon rags low on her waist.  Her hands are bound behind her back, her ankles are tied to ropes that attached to the wheel at the foot of the horizontal rack.  Her neck is placed in a stock device.  She is stretched while having her feet burned and her chest whipped.  We get multiple camera angles, including a good pan that begins with a shot of the torturer turning the wheel and panning up the entire length of her body.  A very brutal scene.  As a rack scene, this one would have been better had she been stretched by the wrists instead of her neck, but as a torture scene, this is considered by witchhunt movie afficionadoes as one of the classic scenes. VIDEO LINK

Mark of the Devil II    (1973)    R

In the sequel, Erica Blanc plays a Countess tortured by Reggie Nalder.  In the rack scene, she is wearing a dungeon robe that is off one shoulder.  During the stretching, a brief portion of one of her nipples is revealed.  Her arms appear to go under the wheel of the rack.  At one point, water is poured on her to revive her.  Overall, I did not like this scene very much. VIDEO LINK

(aka AKA Mondo Cane II) This sequal to Mondo Cane features one segment about a photo studio that specializes in cover photos for detective magazines.  One of the sets is a Spanish Inquisition scene with a big wheel rack.  No stretching or torture are featured - this scene is extremely brief.

I know this flick barely qualifies for inclusive on this site.  I still dig it.  Antonella Lualdi is stripped to the waist and tied AOH to be whipped by Anita Ekberg.  During the whipping, the henchman tugs at the rope, adding tension to the victim.  No, she nevers gets off the ground, but the style of torture is reminiscent of Beatrice Cenci, so I'm including it here.

"Vanishing Act" episode.  In this short-lived TNT series, Barbara Griffin finds herself hanging by her wrists in a scene I never had the pleasure of viewing except for these video captured stills.

No Retreat, No Surrender 2   (1987)    S

This name-only sequel to the Jean-Claude Van Damme action yarn stars 80's B-movie star Cynthia Rothrock in the lead role instead.  At the climax of the film, she and her Asian friend (Patra Wanthivanond) are suspended by their wrists over a huge pit filled with crocodiles.  Sandbags supporting them are then shot at, forcing sand to spill out and lowering their bodies toward the hungry crocs below.  It sounds better than it is because the action is constantly interrupted by long stretches of gunfights and explosions.  And unfortunately there's a rescue, so no tasty femme hors d'oeuvres for the crocs, either.  Overall not a bad scene, although it's obvious the girls are not really hanging by their wrists in a few random shots.  DOWNLOAD LINK

In this hard-to-find Mexican film, a young woman (Elpidia Carrillo) is shown tied naked to a wheel rack. Not much stretching and a relatively short scene that's mostly filmed in long shots. During the one close-up of the victim's face, however, she seems to be very much in pain. VIDEO LINK

This fascinating Spanish horror film about a restaurant that serves up human flesh features 3 naked women (along with one guy) who get hung up by their wrists before being prepared as the main course. Most of the suspension shots appear to be faked, where it's likely the victim is standing on something due to the lack of swaying in the shot. But there is a brief segment where we get a nice shot of the second victim (Sara Gomez) clearly dangling naked by her wrists, unfortunately alongside the guy. Still, a worthwhile movie to seek out, if you can find it. VIDEO LINK 1 and 2

In the second chapter of this serial, Kay Aldridge is tied to a horizontal wooden ladder-type rack and tortured by Lorna Gray.  Kay Aldridge is fully clothed, her arms are taut, and she does appear to be in pain.  A standard 40's serial scene. VIDEO LINK

As for the wrist suspension, this is the classic shot of Kay Aldridge hanging by her wrists that was used in promos for this serial.  She is suspended over a flaming pit (repeated, with slightly better results, 11 years later in Jungle Drums of Africa).  It is obvious that a stunt double was used for the full body shots that show suspension. VIDEO LINK

Rona De Ricci is tied to a very historically accurate horizontal rack and stretched briefly.  She is wearing a white nightgown-like robe and nothing is revealed.  This is a classic example of the "could have been" scene.  This Stuart Gordon remake had so much potential: a real medieval castle, well-crafted instruments of torture built by the local artisans, quality production.  Also, the movie went direct-to-video, so in my humble opinion, the producers shouldn't have had to worry about the censors.  The potential was there for this to have been a torture epic rivalling Mark of the Devil and Inquisition.  Unfortunately, it didn't come even close.  But a poor rack scene is better than no rack scene, and Rona De Ricci does appear to be in a lot of pain as she is violently stretched.

This is probably one of my favorite torture scenes.  A total of four women get the rack treatment.  The rack is wooden and is a forty-five degree angle model.  In all four of the rack scenes, the women are completely naked and the cameras edit nothing.  The first woman is stretched on the rack, flogged, and burned with hot irons.  The next rack scene is a brief glimpse of two women stretched simultaneously next to each other.  One of the women is Uschi Digart.  In the last rack scene, Angela Field as Cecily, is stretched on the rack and flogged.  Again, the whole dungeon sequence in this movie gets my highest rating - total nudity, arms are taut, everyone seems to be in a lot of pain, and all four are sweating profusely.

I don't know much about this movie except that it has a good suspension scene.  A naked woman is suspended by her wrists from a tree and whipped.

(aka Il camorrista ) In the final minutes of this Italian crime drama, there's an extraordinary 25 second scene in which a mafia leader's nude wife is slowly lowered on a crane, screaming, into a waiting pit of what appears to be quicklime. Guess that'll teach her not to hook up with a mobster next time, huh? VIDEO LINK

This is a thoroughly bizarre movie.  My print of this flick is in Spanish so the plot is a mystery, but it involved a wolf and a skunk (or rather two men in cheesy wolf and skunk suits), a baby that they rescued from alligators, Dumas-esque swashbuckling in a setting that is a cross between 17th Century France and Kenya (I kid you not), an evil queen, a good princess, and a wheel rack reminiscent of the scene from Don Juan.  Not a half bad scene - has every single torture scene cliche you can imagine.  Too bad she's not wearing less.

(aka Caged Virgins) A brief suspension scene, but a scene nonetheless. After being whipped, cute blond Marie-Pierre Castel is shown hanging by her wrists with her female companion at her feet supporting her legs so she doesn't dangle. A female vampire enters the scene and pushes the other girl out of the way, and we briefly see Castel hanging suspended, if only for a few seconds. The female vampire threatens to poke Marie-Pierre Castel's eye out with a stiletto, but her companion pushes the vampire away and lets her down. VIDEO LINK

Ho hum.  A drab girl who is not naked is...yawn...suspended by her wrists in some sort of...yawn...cave and...zzzzzzzzz... VIDEO LINK

There are two scenes in which young women are suspended by their wrists. In the first, pretty blonde Tara Killian, nude except for her panties, is briefly suspended by a chain from a tree branch before being released. There's a large, bloody gash on her chest. In the second, much longer and more satifying scene, cute brunette Natalie Avital is hung naked (except for realistically dirty pink panties) by her wrists off the ground from a tree in the woods. She's tightly cleave-gagged and struggles like crazy in quite a long scene; good close-ups of her gagged face, too. An outstanding scene, not to be missed. VIDEO LINK

In the torture scene, Sandahl Bergman is tied to a wooden frame and whipped by two torturers across her rib cage. Quin Kessler is shackled to a vertical, St. Andrews Cross-style rack.  After Bergman is taken out of the dungeon, Kessler is whipped across the front and stretched until she loses consciousness.  She is wearing a midriff-revealing outfit. VIDEO LINK

In this bad mondo movie, we are treated to a brief glimpse of a torture display in some Japanese sex museum.  The subject is a wax figure of a tortured woman, clad in a tattered loincloth around the waist and tied to a giant wheel.

Please don't think I actually watched this movie!  I don't care if Quentin Tarantino calls this the best movie of the 90's.  Anyways, apparently Gina Gershon gets suspended by her wrists during an S+M-themed Las Vegas routine.  The last time I was in Vegas, I missed this one.  I guess I was too preoccupied with Danny Gans (an inside joke for those of you who've been to Vegas in the past year or so.  Forget about Wayne...it's all about Danny!)

You can't say the BBC doesn't like their racks.  I haven't seen this scene - I only have the stills.  And I'm not sure if the woman on the rack is Maggie Philbin, the host of the show.  The chances of finding this scene on tape are close to nil.  But someone was quick on the draw with the videotape and caught this scene.  Thank you very much.  Enjoy the vidcaps.

I didn't really know how to classify this scene.  A woman is suspended by her wrists and ankles by stakes in the ground.  She is naked, but she has vines wrapping around her body to strategically censor elicit body parts.  This scene was cut out of this Cecil B. DeMille epic in 1944, but the restored video has all the censored scenes. VIDEO LINK

There is a good torture scene in this classic Italian "nunsploitation" flick.  A girl and ward of a convent is being tortured by a priest inquisitor.  She is stretched vertically, not on a rack but with her feet tied to two enormous stone weights and her wrists tied to a rope running through a pulley in the ceiling.  The young girl is topless and wearing a white shift about the waist.  She is also sweating profusely.  The scene only contains one good tug on the rope by the executioner before the priest stops the torture. VIDEO LINK

Yet another depiction of Anne Askew tortured on the rack.  Unfortunately, our Anne Askew in this version is not quite as easy on the eyes the The Learning Channel's Anne Askew or - my personal favorite - the wax Anne Askew of House of Wax.  Why can't we have that Anne Askew?  But since this was a BBC television production, the actress was more than likely English and we all know how the Brits love their dentists.  Some lip balm and a little moisturizer would've helped as well.

There are 2 rack scenes in this movie; only one of them is worthwhile. The star of the film (Danielle Ciardi, who has an impressive rack of her own) voluntarily allows herself to be stretched on the rack. After about a minute or so, her master puts a halt to the proceedings. There's a second scene where a woman (Nicki Pervine) is also tied to the rack, but there's no stretching, just her nipple rings are pinched. VIDEO LINK 1 and 2

In the episode "Bringing Down the House" from the first season of this television series, Stacy Haiduk is tied to a forty-five degree angle rack and tortured by none other than Leif Garrett (!) who records her screams as he stretches her.  VIDEO LINK

This TLC The Learning Channel television documentary features a dramatic re-enactment of the torture of Anne Askew in the Tower of London.  The horizontal rack is very historically accurate, and Anne Askew remains fully clothed throughout the torture.  Oh yeah, Vincent Price in House of Wax was wrong - Anne Askew never did confess on the rack.

This is a great little vintage torture chamber scene.  The scene opens with Maria Montez tied down to a forty-five degree angled rack.  She moans and groans as an inquisitor and two executioners descend the stairs into the torture chamber.  After a brief interrogation (the dialogue from my print of this flick is in Italian, so don't ask me details of the plot), the inquisitor signals one of the executioners to burn her with a red hot iron.  Montez passes out as a result of this treatment, so the stocks holding her ankles are opened and her wrists are hooked to a winch and she is hoisted up and over a hole into which she is lowered.  I'm a big fan of Maria Montez and I searched well over a decade for this movie.  Unfortunately, my copy didn't vidcap too well.  Looks good on my VCR, though.  Overall, the tone of this scene is very reminiscent of vintage comic book covers. VIDEO LINK

(aka Le Gladiatrici, Women Gladiators) Maria Fiore gets stretched on a rack that looks like a log with a couple of pulleys.  Very strange scene. VIDEO LINK

Tiger Woman, The    (1944)    R

(aka Jungle Gold, Perils of the Darkest Jungle) In this serial of the 1940's, Linda Stirling as the Tiger Woman is in a mine on a set of tracks with her wrists tied to one mine car and her ankles tied to another mine car.  The two mine cars then slowly move in opposite directions, stretched poor Ms. Stirling.  Now, I know what you all are thinking:  if I'm including this scene, then shouldn't I include the Jennifer Jason Leigh scene from The Hitcher?  You may have me trapped on a technicality, but it's my website and I dig 1940's serials whereas the scene from The Hitcher did nothing for me, but that is beside the point because the bottom line is that it's my website and I can make or break any rules I want. VIDEO LINK

(aka Metempsyco) You frequently see the still of Flora Carosello chained to the x-frame on lobby cards for this flick.  The rack comes into play after she is taken down from the x.  At some point, her gown is ripped down to her waist, but you never see nudity except for a brief glimpse of her bare back.  A deformed man forces her onto a rack and chains her wrists to the winch.  He then secures her ankles in the stocks at the base of the rack.  Unfortunately, the scene ends here.  There is no on screen stretching or torture.  I believe that this movie has been re-released and digitally remastered.  If it is, I'd like to take a look at it and see if there's more that was edited out in the older print.

Thirteen virgins chained to infernal torture devices, some of which are rack-like.  No stretching or torture.

Sandra Knight is tortured in Vincent Price's dungeon.  She is taken out of stocks and tied to a horizontal rack.  She is wearing a torn dress.  Upon the rack, she is stretched until she dies.  A well acted scene - Knight appears to be in a lot of pain, and she seems to be really stretched. VIDEO LINK

In a scene nearly identical to the later Lair of the White Worm (although on a much smaller scale), Myrta (Halina Zalewska) is suspended by both her wrists over a snake pit. An evil lady takes a knife and cuts through the rope of one of her wrists, preparing to drop her into the pit. But as she's cutting through the second rope, she accidentally falls in and is taken by the snake, and Myrta is rescued.

(Season 4, Episode 10: Secrets of the Heart) An outstanding torture rack scene in this made-for Showtime TV series. Anne Askew (played by Emma Stansfield) is questioned about preaching heresy. She doesn't want to talk, so she is tied to the rack so that her limbs are outstretched. When they decide to go further, one of the men objects, but he's overruled. Then they tighten the wheels of the rack and she cries out in agony. It's obvious she's suffering very badly. When she's finally taken from the rack to be burned at the stake, her limbs have been dislocated as every movement causes her great distress. VIDEO LINK

(aka Son of Hercules in the Land of Fire) In this cartoonish Ed Fury muscleman epic, Ursus has to perform a feat of strength in which he must keep two horse-drawn chariots from pulling apart Luciana Gilli, who is chained to the chariots by her wrists and ankles.  If I were Ursus in this situation, I'd say "fuck it" and let go of the damn chains and watch Ms. Gilli get pulled apart by the chariots.  I guess that's why I'm not a "hero."  Anyways, the one thing that really ruins this scene is the veil Luciana Gilli is wearing that hides her face - apparently, both her and Ursus are supposed to be in disquise.

Vampire Happening, The    (1970)    R

The rack scene is about eleven minutes into this movie.  A movie star inherits a castle infested with vampires.  On her first tour of the castle, she is shown the torture chamber.  When the caretaker shows her the rack, she imagines a torture scene.  Well, the woman has a good imagination - this is one of my favorite rack scenes.  A naked woman is tied to the horizontal rack.  She is sweating and appears to be in a lot of pain.  The camera pans from her feet and pauses at her chest, then continues up to the wheel and the torturer, who happens to be the caretaker who is eating a banana.  While this scene is very brief, the quality is excellent.   Highly recommended. VIDEO LINK

Susanne Roquette is stretched on a horizontal rack before the eyes of her scientist father, who is watching the torture from a hanging cage.  She is being stretched to get her father to cooperate with Fu Manchu, played by Christopher Lee (earlier in the movie, she was chained to a post, the back of her dress torn open, and branded on her back to get her father to cooperate - Dad must like seeing her tortured!).  The scene is brief, and while Roquette feigns pain, her arms never seem very taut. VIDEO LINK

Actress Carita portrays the barbarian queen Bodacea in this Hammer studios viking saga.  In the suspension scene, she is chained to a cart and whipped.  Her tunic is torn off from the waist up, but hair strategically covers her breasts.  There are a few full body shots showing that she is indeed suspended.

I haven't seen this movie, and to be honest I like it that way.  From the vidcaps, it looks like a pretty poor scene.  Yes, there's a rack with a girl tied to it, but beyond that the scene seems to include every element of commercial bondage videos that I go out of my way to avoid.  The cool thing is that you can probably easily find this cheapy on the shelves of your local Mom and Pop video store.

Warrior Queen    (1987)    S

Sybil Danning is in this one, so you know it's going to be good...NOT.  In this schlocky Roman Empire sleazefest, there is a slave auction scene.  First, a nude black girl is hung from her wrists to be auctioned off.  Several close-up shots as well as a few full-body shots, so you know she's really hanging.  Then the blonde white girl (Tally Chanel) gets the treatment.  Close-up shots of the blonde, but no full-body.  Not a bad scene. DOWNLOAD LINK

(aka Divoké pivo) This Czech comedy has a scene near the beginning where a very attractive girl (played by Playboy Playmate Markéta Hrubesová) is dragged into a dungeon, placed on a rack and threatened with a hot poker before she's rescued by a couple of policeman. Pretty much a nothing scene; very short with no real stretching and the hot iron threatening likewise only lasts a few seconds.

This hard-to-find, low rent sci fi/thriller has cute blonde Rebecca (Emily Longstreth) kidnapped by a low-life looney, who suspends her from her outstretched arms and forces to read Shakespeare to him. Her ankles are tied together and they sway back and forth, so it's evident that she's really hanging from this uncomfortable position. The bad guy slices her wrist with a knife and we hear some nice screaming and crying while she's being tortured. He also punches her in the stomach. Overall a pretty nice scene, but then I've always had a bit of a crush on Emily Longstreth. VIDEO LINK

Witchhammer    (1970)    R

(aka Kladivo na Carodejnice) Another Czech movie.  A rack scene, but the victim is old and ugly. Oh well.

Women in Cages    (1972)    S

I love this flick.  It has the same look and feel of Big Doll House.  Pam Grier is the head guard of a Filipino women's prison equiped with a torture chamber known as "The Playpen."  Judy Brown is tortured by being stripped, then suspended by the wrists and lowered down into metal boots to be burned by a red hot flaming brazier.  Fun.  Roberta Collins gets the treatment with she turns down Pam Grier's sexual advances.  Her punishment is being strapped to a spinning wheel and prodded with a leftover prop from The Arena.  And for fans of Quentin Tarantino, Pam Grier's character is named Alabama.  If you're at all into post-mod referencing in movies, you probably are already familiar with this puzzle piece.  If not, there you go.  Ba da bing. VIDEO LINK

Wonders of Aladdin    (1961)    S

Saturday afternoon UHF classic sandal-fest, this one has that naked suspended up high scene we all know and love.  And remember to keep all your shields on the floor and out of the way just in case a naked girl gets hung from the ceiling by her wrists and just in case there is a camera in the room filming it and just in case that aforementioned shield might end up resting strategically between said naked girl and the angle of the filming camera.  Dig it. DOWNLOAD LINK