Witchfinder General starts with a pair of gallows being built in a field, a woman (Gillian Aldam) accused of being a witch is dragged from a nearby village & hanged... It's 1645 & England is in the grip of a bloody civil war, on the one side there is the Royalist Party who fight for King Charles & on the other side there's the Roundheads who form Cromwell's Parlimentary Party. There is no law or order & the corrupt like Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) can hide behind the fear he commands, he takes advantage of his position & the god-fearing people he is supposed to protect & serve, Hopkins is paid for every witch he takes care of, in his own unique way, so all he does is have his equally corrupt assistant interrogator John Stearne (Robert Russell) torture a confession out of someone, pronounce them as a witch, execute them & then wait for the cash to come in. However Hopkins accuses & tortures a priest named John Lowes (Rupert Davies), his niece Sarah (Hilary Heath as Hilary Dwyer) pleads with Hopkins to spare her uncles life & even has sex with him. After Hopkins is finished with Sarah he kills her uncle anyway. Sarah's boyfriend, a Roundhead soldier named Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy), becomes aware of the events & sets off on a personal mission to put an end to Hopkins & his barbaric corrupt ways...
Also known as The Conqueror Worm (I have no idea what this alternate title means although I think it was a marketing ploy to associate it with the Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name) this British production was co-written & directed by Michael Reeves & is a solid historical horror that takes itself extremely seriously but I couldn't help but feel it's a little overrated. The script by Reeves, Tom Baker & Lewis M. Heywood is based upon the novel Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General by Ronald Bassett from 1966. The film has a decent storyline that entertains & is more than just a collection of torture scenes as it explores various other themes most notably corruption & the abuse of power. At it's most basic, like virtually all horror films, it's just a good vs. evil scenario with the expected results. The character's are well fleshed out, unfortunately the film can drag in places especially the middle.
Director Reeves committed suicide in 1969, the year after Witchfinder General was made. The opening is great as the woman is dragged through the street's to the newly built gallows, the noose swinging in the breeze & a priest reading the bible as she is mercilessly hanged all watched by Hopkins on horseback. The film never quite reaches these atmospheric heights again. The violence & gore is disappointing so don't go into Witchfinder General thinking it's stuffed with torture scenes as it most certainly isn't. A woman is beaten in a cell, there's some gunshot wounds & a bit of splattered blood but very little else. There is some brief nudity in the full uncut version but, again, not much.
Technically Witchfinder General is very polished, the nice English countryside locations, good cinematography, good looking sets & costumes while as a whole it's well made throughout. The acting is strong by all as Price gives probably his best performance, apparently director Reeves wanted to cast Donald Pleasence but American co-financier AIP insisted on Price.
Witchfinder General is a good solid horror film with a decent story, a dark atmosphere & passes an hour and a half painlessly enough. Just don't expect the best film ever & in fact I much prefer the similarly themed film Mark of the Devil (1970). Definitely worth a watch.
Also known as The Conqueror Worm (I have no idea what this alternate title means although I think it was a marketing ploy to associate it with the Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name) this British production was co-written & directed by Michael Reeves & is a solid historical horror that takes itself extremely seriously but I couldn't help but feel it's a little overrated. The script by Reeves, Tom Baker & Lewis M. Heywood is based upon the novel Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General by Ronald Bassett from 1966. The film has a decent storyline that entertains & is more than just a collection of torture scenes as it explores various other themes most notably corruption & the abuse of power. At it's most basic, like virtually all horror films, it's just a good vs. evil scenario with the expected results. The character's are well fleshed out, unfortunately the film can drag in places especially the middle.
Director Reeves committed suicide in 1969, the year after Witchfinder General was made. The opening is great as the woman is dragged through the street's to the newly built gallows, the noose swinging in the breeze & a priest reading the bible as she is mercilessly hanged all watched by Hopkins on horseback. The film never quite reaches these atmospheric heights again. The violence & gore is disappointing so don't go into Witchfinder General thinking it's stuffed with torture scenes as it most certainly isn't. A woman is beaten in a cell, there's some gunshot wounds & a bit of splattered blood but very little else. There is some brief nudity in the full uncut version but, again, not much.
Technically Witchfinder General is very polished, the nice English countryside locations, good cinematography, good looking sets & costumes while as a whole it's well made throughout. The acting is strong by all as Price gives probably his best performance, apparently director Reeves wanted to cast Donald Pleasence but American co-financier AIP insisted on Price.
Witchfinder General is a good solid horror film with a decent story, a dark atmosphere & passes an hour and a half painlessly enough. Just don't expect the best film ever & in fact I much prefer the similarly themed film Mark of the Devil (1970). Definitely worth a watch.