An undeniably brilliant swan song for the ill-fated directorial prodigy Reeves, with remarkable vision, and a ghastly sadistic performance by Vincent Price. Hard to like the film because it gets under your skin with its brutality and just stays there, eating you from within. A very fine work that stays with you, hauntingly.

_**Cinema's account of the infamous Matthew Hopkins**_

The infamous witch-finding exploits of Matthew Hopkins in Eastern England circa 1646 are chronicled based on Ronald Bassett’s 1966 novel. Hopkins (Vincent Price) and his colleague John Stearne travel from village to village brutally torturing "confessions" out of suspected witches and charging the local magistrates for the "work" they carry out.

"Witchfinder General" (1968) is a Tigon production, a minor rival of Hammer Films, retitled "Conqueror Worm" in America with the addition of opening/closing quotes from the Poe poem by Price merely to link the movie to Corman’s Poe-inspired flicks and, theoretically, sell more tickets.

Some call this "the original torture porn" and I suppose the torture scenes were pretty radical in 1968, but the film always struck as a British Western with a simple rape/murder/vengeance plot: A soldier's beautiful fiancé is raped and her uncle tortured & murdered for supposedly being a witch. When the soldier (Ian Ogilvy) finds out, he vows revenge.

In short, it’s like a Western transplanted to 17th century England more so than a torture/horror film, although there is that element. The one death that I found particularly unsettling was where a woman is burned to death by being lowered into a bonfire. It definitely has a lasting impact.

The writer/director was Michael Reeves, a promising young filmmaker. Unfortunately he died of an accidental barbiturate overdose less than nine months after the film was released at the premature age of 25. The dosage was too marginal to suggest suicide; besides, he was already busy working on another film project.

Reeves and star Vincent Price reportedly didn't get along. The director was banking on Donald Pleasence for the title role but, when AIP got involved, they forced Price on him and he had to revise the script accordingly with his cowriter. Reeves mainly objected to Price's somewhat hammy acting style and did everything he could to get Price to play it straight. He would say things like, "Please, Vincent, try to say it without rolling your eyes." At one point Price pointed out to Reeves, "I've made 87 films, what have you done?" The director responded, "Made three good ones.”

After viewing the finished product, Vincent admitted that he saw what Reeves was trying to do and wrote him a 10-page letter praising the movie. After Reeves’ death Price stated: "I (finally) realized what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it, but I was fighting him almost every step of the way. Had I known what he wanted I would have cooperated."

The film is only partially accurate as far as history goes, although the gist is true. The real Matthew Hopkins was in his mid-20s when he committed his atrocities, not almost 60 as was the case with Price. Also, Hopkins & Stearne were reportedly accompanied by female assistants. As far as Hopkins' death goes, tradition tells us that disgruntled villagers caught him and subjected him to his own "swimming test," but there's no actual evidence to support this; most historians believe he died of tuberculosis at home shortly after his torturous escapades in 1647, only 27 years-old.

One of the film's highlights for me is Hilary Dwyer, who plays the soldier's fiancé/wife. She's just a uniquely beautiful woman and a pleasure to behold.

Another strong point is the ending which a man mad with rage hacking someone to death while a just-tortured woman screams and screams. The evil inflicted upon them has brought them to this point of maniacal frenzy. They were venting and it smacks of reality. Despite the downbeat climax I've always viewed it as somehow uplifting for obvious reasons. There's no reason we shouldn't assume that they moved on to live a happy life.

While "Witchfinder General" is not a Hammer film, it is a British movie made at the time when Hammer was in its prime; it therefore has that Hammer vibe, which is why some mistake it for a Hammer picture. Needless to say, if you like Hammer you'll appreciate this. Yet "Witchfinder General" stands apart; it has its own uniqueness, no doubt due to Reeves’ burgeoning genius. As such, the flick is special. Some of the photography is hauntingly beautiful; the protagonists — the noble soldier and winsome Sara — are exceptional; the villains dastardly; and the ending innovative.

So why not a higher rating? Because, as special as this movie is, it's not the most compelling saga, despite lots of action. Artistically, it's gets an 'A' as a low-budget cult flick from that era but, story-wise, there’s room for improvement.

The film runs a short-but-sweet 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Suffolk & Norfolk, England, both a 1-2 hour drive northeast of London.

GRADE: B+

Vincent Price is superb in this depiction of the tyrannical, evil "Matthew Hopkins", tasked amidst the English Civil War to bring fear and terror to the population. Playing to just about every phobia and superstition, he travels the land seeking out and punishing those who worship or serve the devil... There is a magnificent scene in which he divines that a man dropped into the river with stones tied about him will be a witch if he floats, innocent if he sinks (and drowns!)... Sums up the science, really - and the really quite perturbing attitudes that prevailed, even amongst those deemed educated or sophisticated. Ian Ogilvy is "Richard Marshall", a man determined to stop these atrocities and at risk to himself and his family - and we have now watch a battle royal between the two men as worthy as any fought in the war. It's, at times, quite gruesome to watch - and the whole look of the film adds oodles to the sense of menace evoked by this truly malevolent man. Again, based on the vivid imagination of Edgar Allan Poe, this film is a cracker for late on a winter's night with a glass of red wine and a rogue branch tapping on the window.

*Witchfinder General* has somehow spent decades sitting at folk horror’s top table while behaving rather like someone who wandered into the wrong wedding reception and nobody had the nerve to ask for their invitation.

It certainly looks the part. Michael Reeves gives us Civil War England, open East Anglian countryside, witchcraft accusations, Puritan hats and Vincent Price stalking from village to village as Matthew Hopkins. Yet the longer the film goes on, the stranger its place in the folk horror canon becomes. There is virtually no supernatural unease here because nobody needs it. Hopkins does not uncover an ancient evil. He is the evil, and witchcraft is simply the paperwork.

That is where the film becomes more interesting than its genre reputation. Accusations grow from grudges, fear and opportunity. Hopkins and his brutal assistant turn them into money, sex and power. The horror is not that these communities genuinely believe something dreadful is loose among them, but that belief can be manufactured whenever somebody sufficiently unpleasant discovers it is useful.

Price is crucial to making that work. His Hopkins is cold, controlled and almost bureaucratic, which proves far nastier than a cackling occult villain would have been. Against the remarkably attractive countryside, the cruelty becomes even more bluntly human. The land is not threatening anybody. The people are managing perfectly well on their own.

Once Richard Marshall begins pursuing Hopkins, the film increasingly reveals itself as a revenge picture, faintly resembling a 17th-century John Wick conducted on considerably less reliable horses. That gives it momentum, but also exposes the problem with calling it folk horror. Strip away the mud, witchcraft vocabulary and enormous hats and there is little sense of old belief rising through the landscape, ritual continuing beneath society or the past colliding with the present. Everyone is already in the past.

*Witchfinder General* remains significant, vicious and historically fascinating, and its willingness to make human cruelty this ugly undoubtedly helped British horror become something grubbier and less comforting. But significance and enjoyment are not the same thing.

Essential viewing if you want to understand the folk horror canon, perhaps. However we are still searching the hedgerows for evidence of why it belongs there!

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Reviewed by FolknHell, the folk horror film podcast · folknhell com

Hear the full FolknHell podcast discussion of Witchfinder General: folknhell com/witchfinder-general-review along with our other reviews, transcripts and episodes.