FILM
REVIEW – WITCHFINDER GENERAL
Classic 1968 horror movie directed by the
short lived Michael Reeves.
Set
against the backdrop of the English Civil War, this is a very fictionalised
account of the life and work of real Witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins, who
fraudulently denounced many people, mostly women, as witches during the
conflict between King Charles 1st and Oliver Cromwell.
In
the film, Ian Ogilvey (later to play Simon Templar in the TV series, Return Of
The Saint), plays a Roundhead soldier who saves his Commanding Officer from a
Royalist sniper. As a reward, he is given a period of leave to visit his
girlfriend, who he is already making love to though he does ask her parson
father for permission to marry her. Permission is granted for some period in
the near future.
As
he rides off to rejoin his regimente, Ogilvey passes Hopkins (Vincent Price)
who is on route to denounce the girl’s father as a witch. Ogilvey is oblivious
of what Hopkins is up to.
The
girl, (Hillary Heath) desperately tries to save her father by offering her body
to Hopkins, and his brutal assistant John Stearne (a real life character)
played with snarling menace by Robert Russell.
Despite
her sacrifice, her father is denounced as a witch, and with two other
townsfolk, he is subjected to witch swimming, and because he floats on the
water, he is found guilty and hanged. Hopkins declares the woman who drowns
during the swimming a holy innocent.
Ogilvey
learns of the crisis at home and deserts to deal with his fiancé’s needs. He vows to kill Hopkins, and even conducts a
blasphemous ceremony in which he marries his girl himself while vowing his
vengeance.
Hopkins
is himself falling foul of the authorities for going too far in his crusade
against the ungodly. He even abandons Stearne to capture briefly by the
Roundheads. Ogilvey meanwhile, finds his temporary leave of absence overlooked
due to his bravery in saving his officer, and he is taken to a meeting with
Cromwell (Patrick Wymark). Cromwell orders him to help search for the King, who
has escaped captivity and may be trying to escape abroad. Ogilvey quickly abandons the mission to
follow more leads on Hopkins, who has headed for the town to which Ogilvey has
sent his ‘wife’ for safe keeping.
In
the town, Hopkins has started killing witches by a new and terrible method – he
raises them above a bonfire on a ladder, and drops them into the flames tied to
the ladder-frame. He captures Ogilvey wife, and Ogilvey breaks into the castle
dungeon Hopkins is using as a Headquarters to save her. Ogilvey own men come to both deal with his
second desertion, and sort Hopkins out. As they arrive, Ogilvey has killed
Stearne and is now dementedly beating the helpless Hopkins to death. Taking
pity on Hopkins, a soldier kills Hopkins with a mercy killing musket shot. The
film ends with Ogilvey, quite mad, screaming his hatred at the man for taking
Hopkins from him before he has finished dispensing his own justice on the man.
The
film is remarkable in many ways; the director refused to let Price ham it up as
he does in many other film roles, and Price hated him for this throughout
filming. Price is reduced to a glowering, simpering malicious look. He doesn’t do a lot (Stearne actually does
more of the actual killing than Hopkins), but his appearance is terrifying the
film opens with a woman being dragged, kicking and screaming to the gallows.
Only as she is hanged does the camera pan to Price, watching in silent approval
from a nearby hill. The image is shocking. Price later wrote to Reeves and told
him that he thought the man had drawn out his best performance ever.
Some
scenes were cut for being too horrible, but later restored, though jarringly,
into the DVD release. They include some images in the drownings sequence.
The
real star of the film is The English countryside, which is captured
magnificently. Though a horror movie in name, it is really regarded as an
English Western by most critics, with the sweep of the country adding a sense
of menace to the story.
American
audiences saw the film under the pointless title The Conqueror Worm, a line
from Edgar Allen Poe, as the distributors wanted to confuse the film with
Price’s Poe films, which he had made for Roger Corman.
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