Witchfinder General [R]

In a lawless England torn apart by civil war a ruthless and merciless man known as Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, travels from village to village hunting down accused witches and ‘doing God’s work’. When he and his partner execute their brand of justice on a priest and his niece Sarah, Robert Marshall, a soldier and husband to Sarah, vows to hunt down Hopkins and exercise his own justice. 

I am of the opinion that this movie was made purely to see how much bad and unbelievable blood, violence, vulgarity, sex, and implied rape the filmmakers could get into one feature. It transpires, a fair bit. A revenge story that ends up making the hero no better than the villain: a bit like Se7en, but nowhere near as haunting and impressionable, Witchfinder General is a film. That is all. 

I honestly don’t know how to feel about this movie. It was only at the end, the very end, that I could actually draw some meaning out of it, which makes the entire other 80 minutes completely null and void. An anticlimactic assuage to rape fantasies and bad provincial village horror films, this cult movie does not deliver much of anything. 

I have this image in my head of the stars and backers being pitched a film of immense integrity and multiple interpretations, but the end result was just ugh. This would certainly explain Vincent Price’s melancholy neutrality throughout the whole thing. He doesn’t so much deliver a performance as he just says his lines in that beautifully sinister velvet voice of his, possibly the only effort that he does put in is a bit of humane sadness in his eyes, which is tempting to view as mercy: “I am sad that I have to take your virtue and ruin you for all men and then later torture you in front of her lover” rather than “I am seriously regretting my acquiescence to do this film”. One can only hope. 

Other not so exciting things to watch out for are the lead’s pretty boyish features mingled with his cute attempt to act dramatically, a load of bad gore effects that have neither the colour no consistency of vitals, absolutely no suspense to speak of, and a shitload of screaming. 

That, ladies and gentlemen is Witchfinder General. 

Starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Rupert Davies, Hilary Heath, Robert Russell, Nicky Henson, Tony Selby, Bernard Kay, Godfrey James, Michael Beint, John Trenaman, Bill Maxwell, Paul Ferris, Maggie Kimberly, and Peter Haigh, Witchfinder General is also known as The Conqueror Worm, interpret that as you will, and is a ridiculous and pointless cult movie filled with violence, vulgarity, drama, screaming, romance, and sex. It’s tasteless and unimpressionable and you can still live a happy life without ever watching it.