Witchfinder General

"I hold all human life dearly, especially my own"

It's 1645 and the Civil War in England means that chaos reigns. Vincent Price leads the cast in this film as Matthew Hopkins, the real-life Witchfinder General of the title; a powerful and pious man who trawls the countryside sniffing out and destroying witches. Price considered the role to be his best performance, and the film's notoreity for gratuituous violence (for the 1960s) saw it become a cult classic. The director's cut reinstates several distressing scenes of torture and execution that had been previously excised by the British censorship board in the 1960s, resulting in a somewhat patchy film-quality (something that isn't helped by the film's relatively low budget) but also ensuring a certain level of nefariousness.

Witchfinder General opens on a woman being forcefully dragged to the gallows as she screams senselessly in fear and realisation. This is a land where fear abides, a near lawless tale where violence breeds more violence, played out against the backdrop of the English Civil War. The Witchfinder is an apparently fanatical figure, jealously protective of his power and superficially moral. At first he seems like a force to be reckoned with, untouchable and elite, but his hypocrisy soon emerges with inference of him using his position for sexual gain. We also see the manipulative machinations of John Stearne (Robert Russell), his envious assistant. Stearne is a thoroughly unpleasant character who would perhaps be even more villainous than Hopkins should he ever manage to get the same degree of power.

The film is an odd mix of historical fiction and horror, with some fans dubbing it 'folk horror', though there are no supernatural elements whatsoever. The 'witches' depicted in the film are all historically accurate - victims of superstition and neighbourly finger-pointing. I have to say that part of me felt blase towards the subject matter due to overexposure to the Salem witch trials in my school days, and overall I was a bit disappointed with the film after having read of its reputation as a revered cult favourite, but I can see why it's considered an influential B-movie for the time. It has a creepy atmosphere as well, evoked by Price's menacing performance and explosive bouts of violence that help give a sense of pervasive evil.

Price is great in his role as Hopkins, he underplays for once and even adopts a Cornish accent, but I couldn't help but wish for something a little more complex than a series of scenes showing him travelling around and doing his thing while a 'good' guy plans some revenge against him. Most of Witchfinder General was filmed in the countryside, using location shooting and authentic costumes and architecture from the period to get around a slim budget. There's a certain rough charm in the way it unabashedly chucks a realistic level of violence on the screen and looks at the English Civil War in a thoroughly cynical way. Maybe my expectations of it were just too high, though parts of it did remind me of 70s Doctor Who (which isn't a bad thing), and the way it just builds into this frenetic sense of sadistic abandon at the end must've been quite an unusual experience back in the late 1960s!

DIRECTOR: Michael Reeves
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Ronald Bassett, based on his novel.
KEY ACTORS: Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Robert Russell, Rupert Davies, Hilary Dwyer, Bernard Kay, Tony Selby, Patrick Wymark

RELATED TEXTS:
- Witchfinder General, a 1966 novel by Ronald Bassett.
- Director Michael Reeves had previously directed the B-grade horror films The Sorcerers and Revenge of the Blood Beast. He was scheduled to work with Vincent Price again on The Oblong Box but he bowed out of production shortly before dying of a drug overdose.
- The success of Witchfinder General sparked a wave of 'folk'-influenced horror films in the UK, including: Murders in the Rue Morgue, Cry of the Banshee, Mark of the Devil, Night of the Blood Monster, Witches' Hammer, The Dunwich Horror, Blood on Satan's Claw, The Wicker Man and The Devils.
- The film also influenced a metal band from the early 1980s who called themselves Witchfinder General.
- See also Witchsmeller Pursuivant - the 5th episode of the first series of Blackadder, which parodies this film.
- For a more intellectual take on medieval witch trials, see Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible, and the two films based on it.