Red-Barracuda Alongside the later films The Bloody Judge (1970) and The Devils (1971), Witchfinder General was one of a small sub-set of movies that can perhaps best be described as historical horror films. These took a true historical setting or character and adapted it for the screen while ramping up the salacious content to the point that they partially fell under the horror genre as well. I guess they were a natural off-shoot from the plethora of 60's Gothic costume horrors which were so popular at the time. The central character in this one was the infamous lawyer Matthew Hopkins who committed hundreds of horrendous crimes during the chaos and lawlessness of Civil War England. He was essentially a sadistic opportunist who carried out his murders in the name of God. This agent of the Royalists ended up murdering hundreds of 'witches'. Watching this film again recently, it got me to thinking how hundreds of years later things haven't really changed all that much, with a disturbingly parallel scenario playing out in the Middle East right now, where the group known as ISIS have exploited the chaos of the Syrian Civil War to commit a multitude of violent killings all in the name of their religion. It seems that religion, opportunism and hypocrisy still result in horrific violence today as they did back in the 17th century.This was renamed Conqueror Worm in the USA, which was the name of a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. This was clearly an attempt to associate it with the earlier Roger Corman directed, period-set Poe adaptions which also starred Vincent Price. Aside from part of the poem being read in the closing credits, the film has nothing to do with it though. It was directed by Michael Reeves who died shortly after its release at the age of 25 from an accidental over-dose. He did not want Price in the lead role; it was forced upon him by the distributor. In the event, perhaps unsurprisingly, there were tensions between them on set, although this may have inadvertently helped the film's tone. Price eradicates his typical hammy style and puts in an impressively chillingly cold performance. Truthfully, it's some of the best acting he ever did and shows the range he was capable of. Aside from the central character, this one overall is a pretty humourless and bleak affair, yet because of this it holds up much better than most of its contemporaries. It is apt that it takes this approach; however, as Hopkins is an utterly vile character who subjects many people - mainly women – to various horrific tortures, but also coerces the younger women into having sex with him. Like many religious fundamentalists, he is a hypocrite and a sadist. It's to the film-makers great credit that they were bold enough to tell the story without holding back on these unpleasant aspects.The film benefits from on location shooting in East Anglia where the atrocities actually happened. The locales are sometimes quaint, yet other times vaguely sinister but always authentic feeling. The period detail in general is pretty good, with good costuming etc. Visually this is a nice-looking film. Aside from Price there is good support work too from Ian Ogilvy as the hero and Hilary Dwyer as his victimised fiancé. The story itself plays out to a very fictionalised conclusion, yet this is neither the first or last historical film to do that. In summary, this is a very impressive and distinctive film.

Johan Louwet The movie is definitely horror with the torture scenes in order to get a confession of witchcraft out of the poor victims as the main attraction, Next to the torture scenes (being called interrogations by the witch hunters) there is the hanging, the water test and burning at the stake accurately showing how cruel the witch hunting must have been and many died innocently just because witch hunters were greedy, abused the superstition or fear of people. Anyone making trouble for the authorities was likely going to be accused of witchcraft. Even though it is as usual another great performance from Vincent Price as the titular character he has not really that much screen time. To give the movie not too much of a documentary feeling they did put a story in it from a girl and her husband (who is a soldier) seeking revenge upon the witchfinder Matthew Hopkins for falsely condemning the girl's uncle of witchcraft which resulted in death by hanging. How accurate this story of the witchfinder general is, I have no idea. I don't think it ended the way it did. The ending I believe is to create still some sort of feel good and it clearly feels rushed.

Joris Well, that was disappointing... I learned about this movie through doom metal bands like Witchfinder General and Cathedral, so my expectations were somewhat different than what I saw. I don't really know what I expected (maybe something more in the lines of A Field in England), but in any case something far less conventional than what I saw. It surprises me that this movie was so heavily cut in censorship. Maybe I underestimated the conservative sentiments in 1960s Britain... In any case, apart from Vincent Price, nothing about Witchfinder General makes me feel like I'm watching a horror movie. Some imagery certainly gives away director Michael Reeves' sentiment to the genre, but I thought he would've added more of an occult sensation in the picture. If Reeves didn't die an unfortunate young death a few months after this was released, I don't think it would've become such a cult hit...

Sandcooler Writer/Director Michael Reeves died at the depressingly young age of 25, but even within a film career than barely span over four years he managed to show a lot of promise. His visual flair was abundant, his screenplays were clever and well-written and most of all, he had guts. If you're barely out of film school (figure of speech, he never went) and you still tell a legend like Vincent Price not to "ham it up", you have what it takes. And it worked, because Price is actually frightening in this movie. He doesn't do any of the usual fun fair routine we know (and love) him for, he's actually portraying a character here and doing a fantastic job of it. He carries the movie throughout, stealing scenes with his intimidating persona and generally being a villain you love to hate. Reeves also went through the trouble of trying to be historically accurate, though this is mainly an excuse to cram in some torture scenes (historically accurate torture scenes!). Still, I appreciate the effort. The only real problem the movie has is its rushed ending, which is very predictable and just screams "let's get this over with". An uninspired moment is an otherwise excellent period piece.