It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The really interesting thing about the horror films of the 50s and 60s is the amount of implicit kink and perversity that got through the censors of the time, proving that the censors were looking for visual elements to prohibit, not plot points or dialogue. If Pyro had been produced with the same sado-erotic fever as four of the most lurid and salacious horror films ever made around the same time (Psycho, Horrors of the Black Museum, Peeping Tom and Circus of Horrors), Pyro would be a classic today. The beginning of Pyro shows the climax, a huge mistake. Producer/writer Sydney Pink felt Pyro was his best film. There are several excellent flourishes throughout Pyro, a title Mr Pink felt was not commercial for the USA. He wanted to call it Phantom of the Ferris Wheel, which is not much better. (It was titled Phantom of the Ferris Wheel in England where it did good business.) An excellent actor, Barry Sullivan shows the signs of deterioration early in the film when he verbally jousts with firebug Hyer at their first meeting. Her criminal insanity and "hot" temper excites him--this is a woman who screws a total stranger within five minutes of meeting him. Half-way through their affair, she reveals to Sullivan that her daughter is the result of incest with her own father, a revelation dropped as fast as it is delivered. Hyer looks in her mid-30's and since the girl is about ten, the writers leave the door wide open for what actually happened. Very powerful stuff for a movie made in 1961, no matter the country of origin. (How did this get through the Franco-era Spanish censors?) That he has a super-hot wife drives home the point that he has a moral compass in need of repair. Little more than a soap opera, Pyro totally disintegrates in the final 20 minutes. Crazy nymphomaniac Hyer's death is perfunctory and shot in an anti-climatic style although the unmasking scene with Sullivan on top of her is both creepily erotic and horrifically effective. (The burn make-up was excellent.) The closing scene--Sullivan kidnapping the child and going on his Ferris Wheel with cops closing in--is beyond clichéd, boring and routine. The Ferris Wheel climax of Horrors of the Black Museum pre-dates Pyros' similar ending. (The writers must have seen Horrors.) Another mood killer is the horrible travelogue-style music, some of the worst music ever scored for a thriller. It's almost as if the music was lifted from a romantic light comedy and just dropped onto Pyro's audio track, without purpose or understanding. The fire effects were very well done--too bad the demented world of pyromania was never explored in any way. A young Soledad Miranda shows an incredible kittenish sexuality very reminiscent of Yvonne Monlaur in Circus of Horrors. Her inexplicable interest in the masked fugitive Sullivan, a man more than twice her age, is a full circle rotation pointing towards Hyer's involvement with her father. I'd like to see a remake of Pyro in the hands of Eli Roth or Brian Yunza but B-level films like this are just not produced anymore, at least not for theatrical release.

A married man has a torrid affair with the previous owner of the house he has bought for his family. He tries to end the affair, but the woman will have none of that. She sets the house on fire killing his wife and child. Burned beyond recognition, the man vows revenge against his former lover.Overall, Pyro is a nice little horror/thriller. The plot, although predictable, is generally well paced and only gets bogged down by the love story on one or two brief occasions. It's the predictability that keeps me from rating Pyro much higher. There are a few chills to be had like the scene where the woman runs in fear down a deserted street at night, afraid that her disfigured lover is about the catch-up with her. The acting is a notch or two above what I have seen in other early Spanish horror films. Both Barry Sullivan and Martha Hyer give excellent performances in the lead roles. Hyer, in particular, is wonderful as the scheming, murderous ex-lover. Finally, the burn make-up is effectively creepy. It's the stuff of nightmares.A couple bits of trivia – first, apparently Pyro was the first horror/thriller movie to be filmed in Spain. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. I just thought it was interesting. Second, cult fans may be interested in catching Pyro to see a young, pre-Franco Soledad Miranda in a small role. She doesn't do much, but she has a presence about her that's unmistakable.

I watched this movie one Saturday night on Creature Features when I was about 10-years-old and it scared the hell out of me. I had to climb in bed and sleep with my mother for the rest of the night. I didn't scare easily, I had watched The Exorcist, The Omen and every other horror movie of that day, but this one did it to me. It was the shot where Barry Sullivan reveals his face and it is burned and scarred. It truly was a scary moment for me. I bought the DVD a few years ago and rewatched it. I was 35 and didn't have to go sleep with my mother, but it was still creepy. This is a pretty good movie to seek out. Even 25 years later it still had the ability to creep me out.

Engineer Vance Pierson moves to Spain, where he will oversee the construction of his invention: a generator shaped like a ferris wheel. He meets a desperate young woman, Laura, who is trying to burn down her home for the insurance money she so badly needs. He stops the woman and they become passionate lovers. But soon Vance wants to end the affair he's having with Laura and go back to his wife and daughter. The jilted mistress flares up into a jealous rage and gets revenge on Vance...and he makes it his mission in life to get his own revenge on her. Barry Sullivan and Martha Hyer are excellent as the leads. Cult star Soledad Miranda appears as Liz, the daughter of a carnival worker, who falls for a mysterious older man. This was the first movie to have a $50 million set (Spain's Belesar Dam). Additionally, it was the first horror suspense movie filmed in Spain. It also was the first movie ever to be filmed in the province of Galicia, which is in northern Spain.