The Conqueror Worm (1968) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A young soldier seeks to put an end to the evils caused by a vicious witch hunter. Director: a list of 25 titles created 22 Apr 2011 a list of 40 titles created 21 Sep 2014 a list of 26 titles created 16 Nov 2014 a list of 25 titles created 23 Jan 2015 a list of 42 titles created 2 weeks ago Title: The Conqueror Worm (1968) 6.9/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Photos Horror thriller set in 17th century England about the children of a village slowly converting into a coven of devil worshipers. Director: Piers Haggard A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land. Director: Roger Corman A man's obsession with his dead wife drives a wedge between him and his new bride. Director: Roger Corman Charles Dexter Ward arrives at a small village to visit the house he inherited from his ancestor who died there 100 years ago. Director: Roger Corman Upon entering his fiancée's family mansion, a man discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely. Director: Roger Corman In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor. Director: Roger Corman Three tales of terror involve a grieving widower and the daughter he abandoned; a drunkard and his wife's black cat; and a hypnotist who prolongs the moment of a man's death.

Director: Roger Corman A Shakespearean actor takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition. Director: Douglas Hickox Aristocrat Julian Markham keeps his disfigured brother, Sir Edward, locked in a tower of his house. Sir Edward occasionally escapes and causes havoc around the town. Director: Gordon Hessler A doctor, scientist, organist, and biblical scholar, Anton Phibes, seeks revenge on the nine doctors he considers responsible for his wife's death. Director: Robert Fuest When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter. Directors: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow Stars: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli Edit Storyline England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. This conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, who tours the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches.

Aided by his sadistic accomplice John Stearne, he travels from city to city and wrenches confessions from "witches" in order to line his pockets and gain sexual favors. When Hopkins persecutes a priest, he incurs the wrath of Richard Marshall, who is engaged to the priest's niece. Risking treason by leaving his military duties, Marshall relentlessly pursues the evil Hopkins and his minion Stearne. Written by Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com> He'll hang, burn and mutilate you. He's the... witchfinder general See more » Genres: May 1968 (UK) See more » Also Known As: The Conqueror Worm See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia The real Matthew Hopkins was only in his mid 20s in 1645 and he died before he was 30. Vincent Price's character is middle-aged, like the actor himself. Hopkins and Stearne executed more than 300 people, mainly women, during their two or three years of 'witch hunting'.

Considering that 500 people in total were executed for witchcraft in England between the late 15th and late 18th centuries, it means that Hopkins was responsible for two thirds of these executions during a period of three years. See more » Goofs When Stearne is captured by the Cavalry Troopers, one asks another if a pikeman is required in his platoon. In fact, only the infantry used pikes. See more » Quotes [first lines] [United States Conqueror Worm versions] Matthew Hopkins : [voiceover] LO!

't is a gala night/Within the lonesome latter years./An angel throng, bewinged, bedight/In veils, and drowned in tears,/Sit in a theatre to see/A play of hopes and fears,/While the orchestra breathes fitfully/The music of the spheres." Schlock & Awe: WITCHFINDER GENERAL | Nerdist Schlock & Awe: WITCHFINDER GENERAL Posted by Kyle Anderson on October 8, 2014 Share: Films By the time Witchfinder General came out, Vincent Price had long been America’s horror film king, picking up the mantle from Boris Karloff (who was British himself) in films like The Fly, The House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, and a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations by director Roger Corman, which cemented the actor’s legacy.

He’d certainly played his fair share of evil villains, and would go on to play many more, but none of them were as shockingly reprehensible and utterly vile as the character of Matthew Hopkins, the titular pious devil he played in Michael Reeves’ incendiary 1968 film, Witchfinder General, a film that will make you positively despise Vincent Price, a feat almost thought unreachable to most horror film fanatics. That’s the mark of great acting, by the way. Now, you’re probably asking yourself based on that trailer “Why would Kyle lie to me and tell me this was a different movie than it says it is?” I’m not a liar. Have some faith in me. When released in the U.S., the film was re-branded The Conqueror Worm in order to capitalize on the aforementioned Price/Corman/Poe films coming out around the same time. In truth, Witchfinder General has no ties at all to Edgar Allan Poe and is in fact based on the true-ish story of Matthew Hopkins, a lawyer who claimed to have been charged with being the Crown’s official “Witch Finder” in 17th Century England to root out devil worship and the occult.

During his 3 year career hunting witches, between 1644 and 1647, more people were hanged for witchcraft than in the previous 100 years combined. Real nice fella, this guy. In the film, Matthew Hopkins and his compatriot Stearne (Robert Russell) are using the English Civil War to their advantage, effectively running roughshod over East Anglia claiming to be the official witch hunters of the land, going into town, accusing, torturing, and eventually executing several “unsavory” members of the community before leaving and demanding the local magistrates pay them for their troubles. It’s a horrible scheme, but they’re quite successful at it. Meanwhile, a young Roundhead soldier named Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) has returned home to his lover Sara (Hilary Dwyer) after killing his first enemy in order to save his captain. This act has shaken him up a bit, but he is a very noble young man and remains true to the cause. Sara’s uncle Fr. Lowes (Rupert Davies) is the local priest in the area and Marshall learns upon his return that the priest and Sara have been ostracized by the community.

Marshall asks Lowes for his niece’s hand in marriage and Lowes agrees on the stipulation that they leave immediately because something bad is coming. Marshall thinks this is rather silly and claims no harm shall befall Sara as long as he lives. He rides off back to join his regiment and passes Hopkins and Stearne who ask him for directions to their very town. When Hopkins and Stearne arrive, they begin rounding up perfectly innocent people, one of whom is Fr. Lowes. They imprison and torture him with needles to the back before Sara comes in and pleads with them to stop. Hopkins only agrees if Sara gives him something in return… you know what it is… Before he can collect, he’s called away for another purpose, but Stearne, a vile and base man, proceeds to rape Sara in his boss’ absence. When Hopkins returns and finds out what Stearne has done, he thinks Sara to be tainted and reneges on their deal and resumes torturing Lowes and eventually executes him and other innocent people. Marshall returns and is aghast at what has befallen his town and his lady fair.

He swears vengeance against Hopkins and Stearne, but with the town in fear of them and their accusations, which bring with them torture and death, the witch finders are practically untouchable. Marshall finds Sara and “marries” her in the remains of their broken-down church and then he sets off to kill his enemies, who immediately arrest and imprison Marshall and Sara and subject them to torture. Mostly, it should be said, the torture is handed out to Sara with Marshall being made to watch helplessly. Well, not TOO helplessly; he is able to free himself and makes his way for his captors who run off. He stomps Stearne’s head in and is then chased by his own regiment until he finally finds Hopkins and grabs and ax… not even this moment is as satisfying as it should be. As if it didn’t sound that way from the description, Witchfinder General is a highly disturbing and unpleasant movie, which is especially strange given it was made in Britain in 1968. It was basically lambasted by the conservative film critic crowd of the time who decried its scenes of graphic violence, even though it had been heavily cut by the British censors already.

For comparison, it was released in the United States under the alternate title completely uncut and became a big hit, even if the mainstream press paid it no mind. This IS a shockingly violent and bleak movie, and is also intensely frustrating given the way witch trials and things were back then. Once accused, there was nothing anyone could do to stave off torture and possible death save confess to being a devil worshiper, which would mean eternal castigation. It was a no-win scenario and this movie did that brilliantly. Price himself gives possibly his best performance in this role. As I said earlier, he makes you hate him and want him to get what’s coming to him, which is something only the best villains can do.

This isn’t a bad guy you sort of chuckle at the audacity of and enjoy the company of before they’re eventually defeated; this is a guy who makes you want him to suffer as badly as his victims, but even then it isn’t what you want because you’re like “Hey, it’s Vincent Price and I like him most of the time and don’t want to see him get really badly killed, but he is an evil person in this… what have you done to me, Price!?!?!?!” Witchfinder General is truly a rarity in the Vincent Price oeuvre, a part he probably shouldn’t have been allowed to play given the tone of this movie versus the tone of the movies he normally did, but he knocked it out of the park. He’s chilling, hateful, and transcends just simply being a horror icon to proving himself again to be a proper great actor. This is definitely worth a view this Halloween season.

Witchfinder General (1968) – A Retrospective Witchfinder General (1968) – A Retrospective By Steve Biodrowski on September 11, 2007 Director Michael Reeves’ historical horror film features Vincent Price in one of the most grim and serious of his many performances, as Matthew Hopkins, a real-life figure who earned the title “Witchfinder General” for his efforts during the Cromwell era. Reeves threw out historical accuracy and turned the plot into a revenge story that is all the more powerful for not condoning vengeance. Despite a misleading title (THE CONQUEROR WORM) grafted on for American distribution, WITCHFINDER GENERAL is a mini-masterpiece of the horror genre—albeit a much more grim and realistic kind of horror than that seen in most films of the era—and the film stands up well when seen today at revival screenings or on television and home video. Read below the fold for an in-depth retrospective on the film.

Ian Ogilvy (who had previously appeared in THE SORCERERS for Reeves) plays a young soldier who swears before God to hunt down Hopkins, the witchfinder responsible for torturing and executing the uncle of his fiancé. By the end of the film the soldier has reduced himself into a virtual mirror image of Hopkins. Though not quite so bloody as some later Price films would be (it was trimmed slightly for U.K. release), the brutality of the violence in WITCHFINDER is overwhelming because of it set in a realistic context and because the story invites us to identify with Ogilvy’s character before sickening us with the extreme form his vendetta takes at the climax. When one of the soldier’s brothers-in-arms shoots Hopkins, putting him beyond the reach of further vengeance, Ogilvy cries, “You took him from me! You took him from me!”—reciting the line again and again, huddled over the corpse, while the fiancé he supposedly came to rescue (Hillary Dwyer) erupts into hysterical screams.

Twenty years later, FATAL ATTRACTION would have mindless zombies in the audience hooting with applause as the villain was shot; in WITCHFINDER, the audience is overwhelmed and numbed, forced first to seduced into anticipating the violence inherent in the hero’s quest, then disgusted by the results—a far more profound achievement. RETROSPECTIVE Although this is Vincent Price’ best horror effort of the late 1960s, WITCHFINDER was not designed as a vehicle for Price. A co-production between American International Pictures and Tigon, a British company, the film was based on a book by Ronald Bassett, which chronicled the actual exploits of Hopkins. The script was adapted by Tom Baker and up-and-coming genre auteur Reeves, whose previous directing credits were THE SHE-BEAST (a.k.a. REVENGE OF THE BLOOD-BEAST) with Barbara Steele and THE SORCERERS with Boris Karloff. After the script was completed, American International producer Louis Heyward made a deal for the company to co-produce the film and handle American distribution, provided that Price would star.

“There was an existing script, based on a book that Tony Tenser had found,” Heyward recalled of the film’s English executive producer. “He had an outfit called Miracle Films: ‘If it’s a good film, it’s a miracle!’ Tony Tenser’s attitude toward picture-making was the same as Vincent Price’s: ‘I’m gonna collect the money.’ What made the deal happen was we were coming to the end of Vincent’s contract, and we were coming to the end of our financial allocation. I was able to make a deal with Tony Tenser for less than $150,000. The attractive thing about that picture was not the script, not the location, certainly not Michael Reeves—because who the hell knew him—it was the price.” The deal was not a pleasant one for Reeves, who had wanted Hopkins to be played by Donald Pleasence (whose portrayal of Blofeld in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was the obvious inspiration for Dr. Evil in the AUSTIN POWERS films). Reeves felt that Prices tongue-in-cheek approach to horror during that period in his career was completely wrong for the role, which Reeves wanted played with dead seriousness.

Reeves fought for, and eventually got, the performance he wanted, and the result is one of the most powerfully villainous and evil characterizations in Price’s career. Exactly how Reeves achieved this is now a source of legend, in which varying myths vie for acceptance. Clearly, he and his star did not get along, but the source of the friction is attributed to various causes. Phillip Waddilove, one of the film’s English producers, has claimed that Reeves let Price know he was not the first choice for the role and intentionally irritated him as a way of provoking an angrier performance. The story, although interesting, seems unlikely, because Reeves hardly had the clout necessary to pull of such a stunt: he was a virtually unknown director, albeit a talented one, and Price was the star whom the financers would probably back in any dispute. Said Waddilove: “Michael had this plan, which was, ‘I’m not going to have him giving one of those effete performances.’ So he proceeded to ignore Vincent. Vincent never went to dailies. I said, ‘You should see the beautiful job Michael’s doing,” but he wouldn’t go.

By ignoring him, Michael got this gutsy performance out of him. Finally, when he saw the movie in New York, about three months after it was finished, he wrote a letter to Michael, saying that he had actually got his best performance out of him.” Exec producer Heyward dismisses Waddilove’s theory as “gloss.” Heyward attributed the antagonism between actor and director to their different personalities: “Vincent was a social creature. When we were on location, he always liked to have people sitting around over long dinners, laughing and talking. Michael was not anti-social; Michael did homework. He ate the obligatory meal, the meal you had to eat to stay alive, and then he’d go up to his room. He would study his script, worry about camera angles, worry about movement: how are exits and entrances made? He would worry about everything. He marked up his shooting script almost like a musical score. Where he wanted emphasis, he would have a mark; where he wanted a decline in speech, he would have a descending mark.

He’d give that to people, most especially Hillary [Dwyer]; he gave strong direction to Hillary, who was not as much an actress then as she later turned into.” As for the friction over Price’s performance, Heyward had this to say: “Reeves did not feel Vincent could do the acting job necessary. He felt that Vincent was having too good a time at whatever part he was playing, and however horrible the man he was portraying was, there would be an overtone of ‘You and I both know we’re kidding,’ which Michael did not want. But I do not believe Michael would go to the point of being rude. I know he had the capacity of sitting down and talking to people to get a better performance from them.” Looking back on the experience decades later, Price did not see himself as the victim of an intentional attempt to provoke him into anger. His explanation was much simpler: “Reeves hated me,” the actor told Cinefantastique magazine. “He didn’t want me at all for the part. I didn’t like him, either.

It was one of the first times in my life that I’ve been in a picture where the director and I just clashed.” Price added, “Michael Reeves didn’t really know how to deal with actors. He really got all our backs up. He’d come to your and say the one thing you shouldn’t tell an actor that gives him no security at all. We didn’t get on at all. He would stop me and say, ‘Don’t move your head like that.’ And I would say, ‘Like what? What do you mean?’ and he’d say, ‘There—you’re doing it again. Don’t do that.’ He was only twenty-four years old when he did that film. He had only done two others. He didn’t know how to talk to actors. He hadn’t the experience, or talked to enough of them, to know how. All the actors on the picture had a very bad time.” Price’s interpretation may sound self-serving, but his description of the way Reeves’ treated his cast is consistent with the recollections of Ian Ogilvy, who starred in all three of the films that Reeves completed. “I was always the hero, and he was always threatening to fire me and get somebody else,” Ogilvy recalled.

“I would say ‘Okay,’ and he would always come back to me, because he liked working with people we knew. He didn’t like directing actors at all. He used to say, ‘Cast it right, and that will do.’ So he really liked getting on with making the movie. If he found an actor he could leave alone, he would use them over and over again. I was just the one he used again.” Of working with Price, Ogilvy said, “He was great. The very first time I met him, he had been on the film about a week. I arrived and put my costume on. I was sitting on this enormous horse, and I was trying him out, riding down this driveway that leads to the pretty house [in the film]. There was what looked like a pile of black rags sitting by the side of the road. As I road past, I heard, ‘Oh my god, she’s so fuckin’ pretty, and she rides that fuckin’ horse so well—I hate her!’ That was Vincent. He was like that all the way through; he was a very funny man.

He did alternate between being kind of irritable and being very sweet and cooperative, but you never quite knew where you were with him.” Apparently, Price had reason to be jealous of Ogilvy’s skill on a horse. Producer Waddilove recalled, “My first day of shooting, I was taking stills of the execution of the witch, and my wife Suzie was over the other side of the fields, helping Vincent get on this gray horse for the first time, familiarizing himself with it. I told the wranglers, ‘He’s got to have a really tame horse.’ When we asked him, he said, ‘I’ve ridden all my life,” so I wasn’t too concerned. The next moment, I saw Suzie waving to me, and I realized there was a riderless horse and no sign of Vincent, just a big pile of black. I rushed over and lifted up the edge of the black cloak. Underneath was Vincent on the ground.” If Waddilove is to be believed, the friction between Price and Reeves reached a climax while filming Hopkins’ extremely violent demise, which required co-star Ian Ogilvy to attack Price with an ax.

According to Waddilove, when Price showed up after having a bit too much to drink, Reeves told Ogilvy to pull no punches while filming. “It was the only time I saw Vincent slightly inebriated, because he was very professional,” Waddilove recalled. “In a few seconds, Michael came up to me and said, ‘He’s bloody drunk—I’ll kill him!’ I said, ‘Michael, you’ll do no such thing.’ I saw him talking to Ian, our other star, so I guessed what he was saying: ‘Kill him; give him hell.’ So I talked to Vincent and said, ‘Come with me a moment, please.’ I took him to another one of the trucks, where the carpenters were, and I got some of that foam rubber. I put it inside Vincent’s clothing, because I knew otherwise he was not going to be too happy.’ When Michael saw what I had done, he was furious; he never forgave me.” (This is one of those Hollywood stories that should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Still, whether or not it literally happened, it probably reflects the feelings on the set at the time.) Summing up the clash with Reeves, Price concluded, “Afterwards, I realized what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it, but I was fighting with him almost every step of the way. Had I known what he wanted, I could have cooperated. I think it’s one of the best performances I’ve ever given. Plus, I think it’s a classic picture of its kind.” Price was not the only actor who failed to live up to Reeves’ high standards. One of the highlights of the film is the relationship between Hopkins and his assistant, John Stern, played by Robert Russell. Essentially, they are a dark, mirror image (as critic Robin Wood has pointed out) of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: Hopkins with his head in the clouds, convinced he is doing God’s work; Stern with his feet on the ground, doing what he does because he does it well and gets paid for it.

Their scenes together show nice visual contrast between the elegant Hopkins and the scruffy Stern, and the interaction between the actors seems perfect; however, Stern’s voice was dubbed by another actor, Bernard Kay. Explained Ogilvy: “The interesting thing about Robert: he had this great look, but he had a rather strange, high-pitched voice. Michael felt it didn’t quite work for the character, but it was too late to do anything about it, so at the end he was re-voiced throughout. The person who re-voiced Robert is the actor who played the fisherman [seen briefly on an isolated stretch of coastline], who said that immortal line, ‘I didn’t know there was a war on until you gentlemen told me.’” The film also featured the debut of Hilary Dwyer, who went on to co-star with Price in THE OBLONG BOX and CRY OF THE BANSHEE before later turning to a career as a producer. Said Ogilvy of his leading lady, “I think what Hilary gives you is a sort of English rose, very perfect skin and a lovely voice.

I think it’s a difficult part; all that maiden in distress nonsense is hard to do, and she did a great job.” “She’s super,” Waddilove agreed. “She actually hasn’t forgiven Michael to this day, I’m told, because Michael said, ‘There’s little nudity.’ Of course when she saw it the first time, she said, ‘My mother can’t come see this!’” The film made the most of its meager resources by shooting on available locations, many of them places where the events portrayed had actually taken place. Ian Ogilvy sighted one example: “The town where the burning was shot is actually Lavenum, which has hardly changed at all. There were burnings of witches by Matthew Hopkins there, and the names of the women are real. The actual inhabitants came to us the next morning and said, ‘You did stir up a lot of trouble.’ We said, ‘What are you talking about?’ They said, ‘Last night there was more groaning and banging of window shutters and doors and whistling in the chimneys—you woke up every ghost in Lavenum!’” After the film was completed, it ran afoul of the censor’s scissors.

Cuts were made in order to get the film cleared for distribution. “At the time, there was some question of the British censor banning it,” Waddilove recalled. “John Trevelyan, the censor, was some distant uncle [of Reeves]. So we went to John Trevelyan’s office, and he handed Michael a list of ten cuts. Michael really went berserk. I thought he was going to hit John! I sort of pulled him back. All of those cuts, MGM found them all and restored them all.” Giving the censor the benefit of the doubt, Ogilvy added: “The thing about Trevelyan was that he really did love movies. He wasn’t just Will Hayes, and he greatly admired Michael’s work. He just said, under the climate of the time, he absolutely had to cut it down: ‘Of course, Ian has to kill Vincent with an ax, but he doesn’t have to hit him fifteen times; three will do.

Then why don’t you just hold on the two guys watching from the door.’ Some people say Trevelyan’s cuts improve the movie, because it’s left to your imagination.” Although spared the censorious snips in America, WITCHFINDER GENERAL ran into different difficulties on this side of the Atlantic. For the stateside release, James H. Nicholson (and co-owner of American International Pictures, along with Samuel Z. Arkoff) tacked on the title “The Conqueror Worm,” in order to make the film sound like the next entry in the company’s profitable series of Poe adaptations, which had come to a halt when producer-director Roger Corman declined to continue making any more after 1964’s THE TOMB OF LIGIEA. Nicholson “went through his well-battered and tattered copy of Edgar Allan Poe to see what would fit,” Heyward recalled. “All we could come up with was having ‘The Conqueror Worm’ recited [by Price] over the opening and the closing.” Poe’s poem appears in the short story “Ligeia,” expressing the title character’s despair over the inevitability of death.

Although the retitling the film THE CONQUEROR WORM may have mislead American audience into expecting a science-fiction flick about a killer invertebrate, the nihilistic tone of the poetry did match tolerably well with the film’s devastating finale. Reeves was not happy with the title change in America, over which he had no control. “I hardly dare tell you what Michael thought about it,” said Phillip Waddilove. “In fact, I really sort of took a vow that one day this movie would come out under its proper title, and it will. In fact, MGM-UA have totally restored it, at considerable expense. I was very privileged to see it through, because they said to me, ‘We want it to be exactly the movie that Michael Reeves directed’ before censor’s cuts were made or anything.” Unfortunately, Reeves never followed up on the success of this picture; his untimely death from an accidental drug overdose, while prepping THE OBLONG BOX, robbed the cinema of a rising young star. Louis Heyward lamented: “ He was a bloody, bloody genius. If he had lived, he would have been one of the biggest directors in our business today.

He was tremendous, not only with cameras but tremendous with people, tremendous with relationships, tremendous with scripts. He understood how important a script is to a film. Rather than [saying] ‘ My pictures are the thing,’ [his attitude was that] ‘the pictures will take care of themselves if I have the right words to make the people believable.’ He did a lot; he put a lot of tender, loving care into this picture.” SEEN TODAY When originally released, WITCHFINDER was obviously distinct from the typical horror film of the period, and the brutality of its violence was quite shocking. The gore quotient has been exceeded by many orders of magnitude since then, but the torture scenes remains as powerful as ever, and the use of violence to disturb an audience retains its impact. For all these reasons, the film has come to be regarded, with much justification, as a masterpiece of its kind. Nevertheless, as sometimes happens with films that develop a cult following, WITCHFINDER GENERAL is in danger of being oversold by the converted. The film’s virtues are undeniable, but there are also several obvious flaws—some due to budgetary restrictions, some not.

“Mike made three movies of this quality for approximately a quarter million dollars—that was not each; that was for all three,” Ogilvy pointed out. “We worked on an absolute shoestring, so there were all sorts of things we would just cut, or we would quickly rewrite it. That’s why the blood looks like red paint—because that’s exactly what it was, red paint from a can…. One of the things Michael wanted and he never did get: when we riding, the troop of soldiers down a lane, he wanted rotting bodies lying in a ditch, and nobody to take any notice of them. That was his idea. We couldn’t afford rotting bodies, but that was the kind of thing he wanted: the lovely beautiful countryside, and that going on, as well.” Besides red paint, the budget also reveals itself in the limitations of the lighting. Although John Coquillion was an excellent cinematographer whose exterior work in the film is quite beautiful, some of the interior scenes betray signs of having been shot with limited equipment (i.e., the actors are sitting in pools of light while their surroundings are hopelessly underexposed).

Available light, without any reflectors or fill lights, was also obviously used in the scene the doorway scene between Ogilvy and Rupert Davies (who plays Sarah’s uncle), making the film look a trifle cheap. Other weaknesses resulted from the limitations of the era’s technology. “We were still doing day-for-night scenes in those days—which is painfully obviously day—with the awful filter on top,” Ogilvy recalled. The day-for-night exteriors are, indeed, woefully transparent, with blue skies and white clouds clearly visible behind the heads of characters whose faces are underexposed to give the impression of a nighttime setting. Even giving the filmmakers benefit of the doubt because of their limited resources, one has to wonder why simple dialogue changes were not made to cover up the obvious fakery: that is, why not have the characters say “what are you doing out at sundown” instead of “what are you doing out after dark”? (Producer Waddilove tried to correct the day-for-night photography in MGM-UA’s DVD.) Finally, there are a few minor problems that cannot be blamed on a lack of money and technology. For example, the film could have used more judicious editing during some of the non-dialogue montage scenes.

The numerous shots of Ogilvy riding cross-country on his horse slow the pace down, and the love scene between him and Dwyer (a clichéd series of slow dissolves) goes on long past the time when the audience has gotten whatever point the scene has to make. Nevertheless, the film has its champions, who considered it—if not a perfectly polished gem, then at least a mini-masterpiece that triumphs over its flaws. Both actor Ogilvy and producer Waddilove are a bit perplexed by the praise heaped on the film. “I don’t know what a masterpiece is, but I don’t put [WITCHFINDER] in the same category as THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE and a few others,” proclaimed Waddilove. “I mean, it’s very flattering for people to say that. I think it was a wonderfully made movie, when you bear in mind that it was made with so little money.” “It started getting attention drawn to itself very early on,” said Ogilvy, who has attended more than his share of revival screenings and tributes.

“So, I’ve seen this movie far too many times: there are places where I have to sit on the floor and shut my eyes; I just can’t watch. I think it’s overrated, to be very honest with you. I think it is a good movie of its genre; I think it’s quite special in certain areas. But I think the mystique surrounding it is partly because the director died when he was twenty-five. If you want to be a legend, don’t stay alive; die young, like James Dean. I do think Mike would have gone on to make great movies. I think the remarkable achievement that Mike had was to make three movies for an extraordinarily small amount of money. He had a very good eye, and the use of tracking in the move [was good]. You must remember this was years before Steadicams were invented, so every move, you had to put the camera on a rail, which took forever. The speed with which he shot, the way he could improvise, was remarkable. But I think we can oversell movies like this a little bit.

I mean, I can see why it’s a cult movie, but I’m not sure it’s a masterpiece.” Compared to TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, perhaps WITCHFINDER GENERAL is not quite a dictionary definition example of a masterpiece. But that’s a bit like complaining that Green Day’s AMERICAN IDIOT is not Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. WITCHFINDER has a kind of raw power because, like the best horror movies, it dares to cross boundaries and go places where ordinary films fear to tread. The most horrifying element of the picture is not the torture that Matthew Hopkins uses to extract confessions; it is that the film’s hero, in his pursuit of the villain, ultimately becomes a sort of mirror image of Hopkins, every bit as violent and sadistic. A later hit film like SIN CITY (2005) plays with extreme violence by crafting the stories to justify whatever punishment the anti-heroes dish out. The effect is entertaining and maybe even cathartic, but it does not approach the profoundly disturbing impact of the conclusion of WITCHFINDER GENERAL, which invites viewers to relish the taste of revenge and then makes it turn sickening.

For that reason alone, the film deserves its cult reputation, whatever its flaws. ALTERNATE VERSIONS Executive producer Tony Tenser shot brief flashes of nudity (involving bare-breasted wenches at an inn) for the German version of WITCHFINDER GENERAL, which were not seen in the British or U.S. theatrical release. In Britain, the censor demanded approximately ten cuts, reducing the on-screen bloodshed, before allowing the film to be released. Even with the cuts, the film still earned the British “X” Certificate. Unlike the American X-rating (which generally denoted pornography), the British X Certificate was sort of the descendent of their old “H” (for “Horrific”) Certificate, and was often applied to films with frightening or violent elements. In America, the film was released theatrically with its bloodshed intact, but the title was changed to THE CONQUEROR WORM, and Vincent Price read lines from the Poe poem of that title over the opening and closing scenes of the film. Unfortunately, the initial U.S.

videocassette release of THE CONQUEOR WORM during the 1980s only heaped further injury on the film, including the brief nudity filmed for the German version. Even worse, VHS tape was hampered by a problem with the soundtrack that plagued several American International Pictures’ releases from this time: the original orchestral orchestral score by Paul Ferris was replaced with sound-alike synthesizer music—not bad, but no match for the original “Green Sleeves”-inspired soundtrack. Apparently, the rights to the soundtrack music had been sold for a beer commercial. Said producer Phillip Waddilove: “When I arrived in [the United States] in 1977, my first Halloween, I nearly had a fit when I saw a Budweiser commercial, and they were using the entire opening theme from WITCHFINDER GENERAL. The film was no longer with AIP; it was sold to Orion, and Orion sold the music to various companies and just put in a cheap score.” The MGM-UA DVD is supposed to be the definitive version. It restores the film’s original title, deletes the narration, includes the violence shot by Reeves but not the nudity shot by Tenser (except as supplemental material).

TRIVIA Producer Phillip Waddilove, who was not a fan of the horror genre, was a bit put off by the content of the film: “Michael wanted to make a violent horror movie!” he recalled. “I did not realize, until I read the screenplay, that I was going to be producing something so gory. I had to examine my conscience for about an hour before I accepted the job.” Ian Ogilvy tried to get his former girlfriend cast in the female lead role (which eventually went to newcomer Hilary Dwyer). “Mike and I interviewed this old girlfriend,” Ogilvy recalled. “She was very suspicious. She thought, ‘Old boyfriend, young director I’ve never heard of, and there’s a nude scene—oh please no, forget it.’” Producer Louis M. Heyward received an “Additional Scenes” screenwriting credit. According to Waddilove, who handled most of the day-to-day production chores on the film, Heyward made no important contribution to the script: “I don’t think we should comment on that, though I’m going to!” Waddilove joked. “If anybody deserved ‘additional material by,’ it was me.

Because the end sequence, where Vincent is hacked to death, was originally going to be burning oil. But the National Trust said, ‘No, you can’t burn any oil in our dungeon!’ So we had to change the screenplay for that scene very quickly, and I came up with the idea. I saw this plinth in the middle of the dungeon, and I said, ‘We’ll make it an altar or something.’” Regarding Heyward’s contribution to the film, Waddilove said, “Actually, my co-producer, bless his heart, was only representing the money from American International. He was a lovely man, Deke Heyward. The only time he came on the set was when we were near the New Market races, because he loved horse racing. The other time was when we were shooting the bare-breasted sequences for the German market.” Domestically, the film earned $1.5-million, about par for an American International Picture starring Price at the time. According to Heyward, the film was also a hit in Europe, launching a tide of unrelated pseudo-sequels: “It was very successful in Germany—it was the most successful of the violence pictures—it started a whole new vogue.

We had not registered the title in Germany, so they had three companies simultaneously shooting ‘Conqueror Worm II.’” WITHCFINDER GENERAL was the last film that Michael Reeves completed before his death from a drug overdose. According to Gordon Hessler (who directed Price’s next horror film THE OBLONG BOX), Reeves was supposed to direct both BOX and AIP’s prestige production DESADE (scripted by genre veteran Richard Matheson), but his declining mental health prevented him. “Michael at the time decided he just couldn’t do the picture,” Hessler recalled. “He was mentally sick; he was taking shock treatments at the time I met him. It was very unfortunate, because he was an enormous talent, and he would have been one of the really important directors. WITCHFINDER GENERAL is a wonderful picture.” NOTE: This article is copyright 2005 by Steve Biodrowski. Some of the material in herein is derived and adapted from the cover story on Vincent Price that Steve Biodrowski co-authored with David Del Valle and Lawerence French for the January 1989 issue of Cinefantastique magazine. WITCHFINDER GENERAL (a.k.a.

“The Conqueror Worm,” American International Pictures, 1968). Directed by Michael Reeves. Screenplay by Reeves and Tom Baker, based on the book by Ronald Bassett, with additional scenes by Louis M. Heyward; lines from the poem “The Conqueror Worm” by Edgar Allan Poe (American version only). Cast: Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Rupert Davies, Hilary Dwyer, Robert Russell, Nicky Henson, Tony Selby, Bernard Kay, Godfrey James, Michael Beint, John Trenaman, Bill Maxwel, Paul Ferris, Patrick Wymark, Wilfrid Brambell Witchfinder General Movie Comments Louis M. Heyward Years ago, before cable, on a Saturday afternoon, the standard movie viewing for local channels was something by Hammer Films or American International Pictures (AIP). Not that this was a bad thing. In fact, some of my fondest memories of cheesy movies come from watching "Chiller Theater" or "Creature Feature". Certain names are associated with movies of this type. Names like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price. You could always count on Vincent Price to ham it up for some AIP movie based on something by Edgar Allan Poe.

On one of these bygone Saturdays, a movie named The Conqueror Worm came on. I knew nothing about this movie except that when it played in theaters, the ad showed a giant skull covered in worms. What did this mean? Based solely upon the title and the art, I expected a to see a giant Reptilicus style monster attempt to devour the world and be thwarted by an overdose of radiation or Denny's pseudo-butter. ("It ate one poly-saturated fat victim too many!") The movie opens with Vincent Price reading part of a poem by Poe. The poem is, "The Conqueror Worm". Is the movie based on a Poe poe-m? Nope. How about a Poe story? Nuh-uh. What about events that happened when Poe was alive? Wrong again. What does the movie have to do with a Poe or even a worm for that matter? Not much. Still, it's Saturday afternoon and maybe there's a giant worm around somewhere. I settle down to watch. There's the English countryside and some guy dressed like a soldier of the 1700s riding up to a house. It's a nice house. It looks like a place someone lives in.

I expected to see the soldier ring the doorbell. No, wait. It's the 1700s and there are no electric doorbells. They must have taped it over for the scene. The soldier, Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) is admitted and there's some talk. Mumble, mumble, "papacy", mumble, mumble, "hand in marriage", mumble, mumble, "my niece". Enter Sara Lowes (Hilary Dwyer). Maybe she's hot by 1700s standards. But to me, she's been spending so much time around the horses that she's starting to look like one. And where's Vincent Price? Eventually, and not a moment too soon, Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) shows up. Oh, boy! Now we're going to see some serious scenery chewing! You see a Vincent Price movie to see ol' Vinnie ham up every scene. Let the entertainment begin! What's happening? What's wrong with Vincent Price? He's doing something odd. He's...acting! He can do that? Since when? The movie has gone from camp to intense in nothing flat. Wow! They're showing the torture on television?

Well, maybe not all of it, but boy is this gruesome and a cut above a standard gore fest. Nice, memorable in a good way. So why do I keep talking about The Conqueror Worm? Isn't this supposed to be the page for Witchfinder General? Well, The Conqueror Worm was the US release title of an edited version of the British film Witchfinder General. Today, you can't get the DVD for The Conqueror Worm, but you can get the DVD for Witchfinder General. So, what about Witchfinder General? It's better than The Conqueror Worm. Probably because the title lets you know what to expect. No giant worms or skulls. Lots of sadists running around the country from the top down. This movie is about a real person, Matthew Hopkins, and some of his acts of atrocity while ferreting out witches. The film is a touch chaotic, not sure if it wants to be a period piece or a horror story. It tries to be both with mixed results. The timeline in the movie is historically accurate.

Matthew Hopkins and his buddy John Stearne (Robert Russell) roamed the English countryside circa 1645 and, for a fee, tried and killed people accused of practising witchcraft. But, they couldn't have done this without the approval, or at least the blind eye, of members of British Parliament and of course, Oliver Cromwell. At this time, Oliver Cromwell was the Lieutenant-General of the New Model Army. A few words on Oliver Cromwell. He was a religious fanatic. A real nut-job in matters of faith. You know the type. Not just "My way or the highway" but more "My way or the painful death way". Under a guise of humility, he directly or indirectly murdered and tortured thousands. Not a pleasant type, but it's easy to see how a Witchfinder could grow powerful under this sort of military and future political leader. For a sympathetic take on Cromwell, check out Cromwell starring Richard Harris. The ever arrogant Harris is perfect in the role of the zealot. This movie is taken from a book of the same name that is a biography of Matthew Hopkins.

The plot of the movie, Hopkins picks on the wrong woman to have sex with and later accuse of witchcraft, is made up. But Hopkins going from town to town administering "witch" tests is not. Not considered torture according to British law, the methods employed by Hopkins make detainee treatment at Gitmo look like a bad night's sleep. Some of the scenes are quite graphic and much use is made of the hollow-handled short rapier. The movie is more torture horror than supernatural suspense, but it works well within its confines. The scariest part of the movie while watching it is that much of what is depicted actually happened. Not enough screen time is given to the Hopkins character. Thanks to Vincent Price's portrayal, Hopkins is intriguing enough to want to know more about. Did he really believe he was doing good? Was he a charlatan? Did he think people were soulless objects? Did he really have a voracious sexual appetite? Unlike The Conqueror Worm, there is some nudity in Witchfinder General. We get to see why Hilary Dwyer nicely filled the role of Sara.

There's one scene I remember from some movie, I thought it was The Conqueror Worm, where a woman's breast gets the hollow-handled prop treatment at an inn. It was shown on television. If it was a scene from The Conqueror Worm, then it was cut from Witchfinder General. The ending is unnerving, which is alright with me, because it reflects what might have really happened. The fate of Hopkins in the movie does not match his biography. The real Hopkins kept on going and eventually died comfortably. After the movie is over, it's still scary. Zealots who preach intollerance (Nancy Pelosi anyone?) are still part of our society. What allowed Cromwell to gain power might be myriad - corrupt government, lack of education of those he lorded over, preying on fears using buzzwords - but parallels can be found today. The threat of witchhunters is as likely today as it was over three hundred years ago. Different name, same mission - get and maintain power. Back to the "Not Too Shabby " list or the main movie list .

Film locations for Witchfinder General (1968) Discover Suffolk Visit Kentwell Hall , Long Melford (tel: 01787.310207) Visit: Orford Castle, Orford ,about 15 miles of Ipswich on the B1084 on the River Alde (tel: 03944.50472) Trivia See Michael Reeves ’s previous film, The Sorcerers , with horror legend Boris Karloff . Witchfinder General location: John Lowesï¿½ church at ï¿½Brandestonï¿½: St John’s Church, Rushford, Norfolk Photo: flickr / David Striker Director Michael Reeves wanted Donald Pleasence for the role of Matthew Hopkins, who made a lucrative career in the 17th century searching out witches. The studio insisted on the more bankable Vincent Price , but after a running battle with the veteran star, the 24-year-old director extracted a performance for once more sinister than camp, and produced a genuine English classic, violent, bleak and beautiful.

In the US, distributors attempted to pass off the film as part of the Vincent Price -Edgar Allen Poe series by retitling it The Conqueror Worm – the title of a poem by Poe. This was the last of Reeves ’ three movies (the others are The Sorcerers , with Boris Karloff , and Revenge of the Blood Beast). The talented director died of a drug overdose in 1969. Witchfinder General location: the magistrate’s house: Kentwell Hall, Suffolk Photo: flickr / Ben Sheldrake Based on a true story, the film uses the landscapes around Suffolk in East Anglia. John Lowes ( Rupert Davies ) was the priest at Brandeston, ten miles northeast of Ipswich, who really was tried by water and executed for witchcraft. The film, though, uses St John’s Church, Rushford, about three miles east of Thetford in Norfolk . Witchfinder General location: the witch-burning: Lavenham, Suffolk Photograph: iStockphoto © Nickos The witch burning was filmed on the site of real burnings in the town square of Lavenham, on the A1141, fifteen miles west of Ipswich.

The picturesque village can also be seen in Stanley Kubrick ’s Barry Lyndon , as ‘Godric’s Hollow’ in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and in Pier Paolo Pasolini ’s 1971 film of The Canterbury Tales. The coastal scene, where Richard Marshall ( Ian Ogilvy ) questions the fishermen, is Dunwich, on the coast north of Orford. The magistrate’s house, site of John Lowes’ trial by water, is the moated Kentwell Hall , Long Melford, on the A134, three miles north of Sudbury, Suffolk – also seen as ‘Toad Hall’ in the 1996 Wind in the Willows . The Hall , built in the 16th century, is open to the public and regularly holds re-creations of Tudor life. The escape of the Witchfinder’s henchmen is Langley Park, on the A412, north of Slough in Buckinghamshire ; while the ambush of the soldiers is the oft-used Black Park, alongside Pinewood Studios, familiar from many Bond and Hammer movies.

Witchfinder General location: Hopkins gets his bloody deserts: Orford Castle, Suffolk Photo: iStockphoto / Jon Chamberlain The fortified tower, where vengeful Marshall bloodily dispatches Hopkins, is Orford Castle, Orford , about 15 miles east of Ipswich on the B1084 on the River Alde. Built by Henry II around 1173, it was a pretty advanced design for its time, and was an important royal residence until being handed over to the Earl of Norfolk in 1280. It’s open to the public. Witchfinder General (1968) | Classic-Horror.com Our editor-in-chief Nate Yapp is proud to have contributed to the new book Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks , edited by Aaron Christensen. Another contributors include Anthony Timpone, B.J. Colangelo, Dave Alexander, Classic-Horror.com's own Robert C. Ring and John W. Bowen. Pick up a copy today from Amazon.com!

Witchfinder General (1968) American-International When “British”, “Horror” and “1960's” pop into most people’s heads, the next word is usually “ Hammer ”, but there were a few others plying their trade at that time. Companies such as London-based Tigon Films churned out a wide range of cheap and cheerful material from horror to soft-core porn to art house drama. Although most of Tigon's output has now sunk into obscurity, they did come up with one bona-fide classic – Witchfinder General. Despite a modest budget of less than £100,000, and a 24-year-old director with only two previous films to his name, it is a well-made, well-acted, very British work of surprising depth and uncompromising brutality, but with some unexpected links to a very American genre of film. When "British", "Horror" and "1960's" pop into most people’s heads, the next word is usually " Hammer ", but there were a few others plying their trade at that time.

Companies such as London-based Tigon Films churned out a wide range of cheap and cheerful material from horror to soft-core porn to art house drama. Although most of Tigon's output has now sunk into obscurity, they did come up with one bona-fide classic – Witchfinder General. Despite a modest budget of less than £100,000, and a 24-year-old director with only two previous films to his name, it is a well-made, well-acted, very British work of surprising depth and uncompromising brutality, but with some unexpected links to a very American genre of film. With England ravaged by the Civil War raging between pro and anti-royalists, the country has descended into anarchy and superstition. Vincent Price plays Matthew Hopkins, a lawyer very loosely based on an actual 17th century figure, who wanders from village to village, investigating allegations of witchcraft. However, his investigations consist of little more than getting his thuggish sidekick to torture suspects until they confess.

When young soldier Richard Marshall (played by Ian Ogilvy) finds his fiancée Sara raped and her uncle murdered following a visit from Hopkins, he vows to hunt him down and take a violent revenge. Although marketed as a horror film, Witchfinder General actually owes a major debt to the Western. Aside from the fact that the main characters ride around the countryside on horseback shooting guns at each other, the lurid cruelty (and highly unrealistic bright red blood) could have come right out of European efforts such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Django. However, more interesting for me are the nods to the likes of Anthony Mann’s classic collaborations with James Stewart, such as The Naked Spur. From here, it borrows both the brooding, vengeance-driven feel, and characters who are, at times, morally ambiguous. Marshall and the Parliamentary forces may be the God-fearing "good guys" but even they are not adverse to stealing horses from farmers. The opening two minutes set the tone for the whole film: a screaming woman is dragged along by a noisy jeering lynch mob, led by a priest.

This is juxtaposed with shots of the peaceful English countryside, broken only by the hammering of a man building the gallows that will hang her. The contrast between the beauty and serenity of nature, and the ugliness and brutality of human beings and their actions is to me one of the most fascinating elements of the film. It crops us elsewhere, such as the post-credits scene where the tranquility of the forest is shattered by the slaying of a parliamentary soldier by a royalist sniper. It invites a very misanthropic reading of the film; director Michael Reeves seems to be saying that, when nature is left undisturbed, the planet runs nice and smoothly. It's only when humans arrive on the scene, with their petty games, crude superstitions and mob mentality, that things turn ugly and violent. Having said all that, Witchfinder General is definitely first and foremost a horror film, just as much as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer . Rather than ghosts, vampires or zombies, or even plants or animals turning against the human race, the real horror is the human race itself. In this world, religion is used to justify inflicting the most appalling violence on people.

The priest may genuinely believe that this is for everyone's spiritual benefit, but for Hopkins the sadist it's merely an excuse. He's not alone in this point of view, with villagers using his services to settle scores with neighbors, providing him with baseless evidence and trumped up charges. Reeves takes a novel of the same name as the basis for his screenplay (co-written with Tom Baker – no relation to the Doctor Who actor), but adds plenty of touches of his own. Between the seemingly endless war, the witch-hunts, and brutal realities of day-to-day survival, the villagers are shown to have become totally desensitized to the suffering of their fellow human beings. In one scene, a man looks on indifferently when he sees Sara being sexually assaulted. At one of Hopkins’ witch burnings, the crowd stand stone-faced, some of them looking almost bored, while people are lowered slowly into the flames, screaming in agony. A few minutes later children are shown roasting potatoes in the same flames, unaware or unbothered by the charred corpses nearby. As long as nobody stands up to him, or as long as people just accept it as part of life, Hopkins reign of terror can continue.

The horror stems not just from what people do, but also what they do not do. The decision to film entirely on location was a wise one. Reeves made the most of the same villages and buildings where 300 years earlier real life witch-hunts had taken place, which also saved him the trouble of constructing expensive sets from scratch. The daytime scenes are excellently shot with the countryside looking luscious and green, contrasting nicely with the grimness of the torture dungeons. Unfortunately, some of the scenes set in nighttime are rather obviously done in the day through a dark filter, an unfortunate byproduct of the very limited time and money available. However, given that the look of Witchfinder General for the most part belies the meager resources available, I think it would be churlish to complain too much about minor dips in quality. According to both Price, and co-star and friend Ian Ogilvy, Reeves was not very good at communicating with actors. This reportedly led to a great deal of stress for the duration of the shoot. In his book, Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman tells how when Reeves made one particular suggestion, Price objected and snapped at the director: "I've made 87 films.

What have you done?" Reeves responded: "two good ones." 1 For my money, the tension was all worth it. By not letting Price fall back on his trademark hammy style and making him rely instead to use his natural charisma and on-screen presence, Reeves forced the actor to deliver a low-key performance of surprising intensity and depth. Price plays Hopkins as a sleazy opportunist, who will crush or double-cross anyone who stands in the way of him achieving his ends. Much as I love the likes of The Tingler or The Abominable Dr Phibes , I think it's a great shame we did not get a chance to see Price in more roles like this. Price is always a tough act to follow, but Ian Ogilvy does an excellent job. More normally seen in lightweight TV shows such as Return of the Saint, Ogilvy turns in a memorable performance as the young soldier pushed over the edge by watching his dreams for a happy life with the woman he loves crumble before his eyes. He does not hold back either at the shocking, shattering climax.

Shaking with rage, almost foaming at the mouth the anger that has building up is let loose in a bloody, frenzied, but cathartic attack on his tormentors. Michael Reeves life and career also finished on a downbeat ending. After a finding his feet with a couple of no budget, hardly seen B-movie horror films, Witchfinder General showed he had a blossoming talent, and could fashion a work of depth, imagination and box office appeal from limited resources. But he never got the chance to show what he could have done with a more generous budget, dying aged just 25 from an accidental overdose of prescription medication. This happened shortly after the release of Witchfinder General, and his passing provided an unfortunate coda to this harrowing, unrelenting but brilliant work. 1. Newman, Kim. Nightmare movies: a critical history of the horror film, 1968-1988. [London]: Bloomsbury, 1989.

Trivia: Michael Reeves originally wanted Donald Pleasence for the role of Matthew Hopkins, but he was overruled by American-International, who wanted to use Price so they could tie the film in with Roger Corman's defunct Poe cycle The American release was titled The Conqueror Worm and opened with Price reading from the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name. Witchfinder General was a big success for American-International; their £32,000 outlay netted them around $1.5 million in the States. The strong box office lead to a revival of the Poe cycle without Corman. However, The Oblong Box (1969), Cry of the Banshee (1970), and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) (all directed by Gordon Hessler) did not meet with anywhere near the same levels of box office return, putting the final nail in the coffin of this particular era of cinema. Login to post comments Witchfinder General | PopMatters Witchfinder General Witchfinder General fits less in the genre of horror than in the kind of films that would follow in the ‘70s with tales of torture, survival and revenge like Straw Dogs and Deliverance.

Vincent Price in Witchfinder General Vincent Price in Witchfinder General Michael Reeves is the James Dean of film directing. Like Dean, he is almost always spoken of in terms of the career that could’ve been, of the films left unmade. His tragically short life only allowed him time to complete three feature films, hardly a filmography large enough to warrant the reputation. But the talent on display was so very real and so oddly mature for a filmmaker only 26 years old at the time of his death that it’s hard not to imagine what this brilliant young director would’ve created had he lived longer. Certainly by the time he completed Witchfinder General, he had jumped light years ahead of his first two films in terms of artistic command and was clearly in tune with his own sensibilities. Perhaps not surprisingly for a young man who spent years dealing with his own depression, this sensibility was dark and fatalistic. An ideological view that keeps the somewhat dated and budget-starved Witchfinder General a powerful experience even today. So, instead of imagining the films never made, we now have an excellent DVD release of a film that stands as a testament to this young director’s skill and talent.

Witchfinder General Amazon Witchfinder General is set in England during the rule of Cromwell and is the story of Matthew Hopkins(Vincent Price), a self-styled hunter of witches, who goes from village to village rooting out the local “evil” and punishing those he deems to be in league with the devil. The truth is that Hopkins is no stranger to evil himself and like many who seek power; he is completely corrupted by it, using his power to gain wealth, status and sexual favors. The crux of the plot hangs on Hopkins’ “cleansing” of one particular village and the young woman, Sarah (Hilary Dwyer) whom he attempts to blackmail sexually in exchange for both her own life and that of her uncle (Rupert Davies). Hopkins has no real intention to keep his end of the bargain and the uncle is hanged for “witchcraft” anyway. Sarah’s fiancée’, soldier Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy), soon discovers that not only has the uncle been wrongfully executed but that Sarah has been violated as well. Marrying Sarah in a private ceremony, Marshall vows to her and God that he will find Hopkins and make him pay for the crimes with his life.

The plot synopsis sounds like any number of European horror films produced in the 1960s and in many ways this one is no different. The presence of Vincent Price suggests all kinds of camp theatrics and fun Grand Guignol like those found in Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations. In fact, Witchfinder General was never released in the United States under that title since American-International Pictures (AIP), the distributor of those Poe flicks, wanted to capitalize on the casting of Price by making it seem like yet another entry in the Corman series. They picked Edgar Allan’s poem, The Conqueror Worm for their title and had Price record a short excerpt from it to play before the credits. But anyone who expected another colorful romp through old castles and premature burials was in for a real shock when presented with this cynical and bleak film. Reeves turned the genre on its head by depicting a world where good and evil were not separate forces but could be found in the hearts of even the most honorable men. Reeves’ childhood friend Ian Ogilvy had already played the leads in his first two films and by Witchfinder General was clearly a kind of cinematic alter ego for the director.

Ogilvy was perfect casting for the seemingly heroic and honorable young soldier Richard Marshall, a man whose soul is poisoned forever by his encounter with Hopkins. By the end of the film, Marshall has left justice way behind and has descended to Hopkins’ level of corrupt morality. Marshall’s final line, “You’ve taken him from me!” is incredibly haunting and a very profound dramatization of the endless and unsatisfying nature of revenge. No matter how evil a man is, he can only be killed once and for those filled with hate, once can never be enough. Hands down, this is Vincent Price’s greatest performance. Reeves had originally wanted Donald Pleasance(Halloween) for the lead and was disappointed by the enforced casting of Price by American-International. Reportedly he did not keep his displeasure a secret from the actor and the two shared a rocky relationship from the start. But it’s clear that Reeves wanted and got more from Price than the actor expected to give. This is what’s most surprising when viewing the film for the first time as Price seems to be almost TOO perfect for the role. What would be surprising with the eccentric Pleasance as Hopkins is completely obvious and expected from someone like Vincent Price.

But Price dials the theatrics down without losing a bit of his wonderful charm and mischievous humor. The result is something close to the real-life version of all those deviant, twisted and often hammy villains he specialized in playing. Reeves may have wanted the surprise of Pleasance but what he got from Price was something near a classic performance. The history of Witchfinder General on video has been a travesty of almost Wellesian proportions. While not as butchered as Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, Reeves’ film has not exactly been treated with the utmost respect. The original home video release on VHS was the most absurd, replacing the great score by Paul Ferris with some Casio synth garbage to save a buck for the music rights. The image was also washed out, seemingly struck from an old drive-in print. This release, as part of MGM’s Midnite Movies Collection, is an improvement on all counts and until either Anchor Bay or Criterion decides to top it, should be considered the definitive version of the film available on DVD. I sincerely doubt that the film has looked as good since it’s release in 1968.

The film is uncut and is the original version with the title Witchfinder General onscreen instead of AIP’s Conqueror Worm. Included is a 26 minute documentary, Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves’ Horror Classic, which is at least a half hour shorter than it could’ve been since Reeves’ life and career are so interesting and peculiar. But it’s still an informative and entertaining addition. The most significant extra is the commentary track by producer Phillip Waddilove and star Ian Ogilvy that covers the entire production in as much detail as can be expected for a film made 40 years ago. Reeves is remembered fondly but both Waddilove and Ogilvy discuss the film quite honestly. Ogilvy points out the film’s qualities and flaws as he sees them but is much too hard on himself as an actor. His performance in Witchfinder contributes much to its effectiveness onscreen. Really, the only problem with the film is that of hype. Its reputation makes any initial viewing somewhat of a letdown. It’s not the most violent film ever made, not the most horrific, nor is it really at all frightening in the traditional sense.

It fits less in the genre of horror than in the kind of films that would follow in the ‘70s with tales of torture, survival and revenge like Straw Dogs and Deliverance. In many ways this is the definitive precursor to both of those films and to other morally ambiguous genre films like Last House on the Left. This is not the kind of horror that comes from cobwebs and creaky doors. Its horrors are all too human and impossible to cast off with a simple fade out. In fact, Reeves seems to even hint at this with his very accomplished cinematic grammar. He ends the film without a simple fade out or epilogue but with the terrified expression and screams of the seemingly insane Hilary Dwyer. The film freeze frames on her anguish as if to say that none of this madness really ends. We’re just lucky to be allowed to get off the ride here.

Witchfinder General Vincent Price Classic Witchfinder General Getting a Remake - iHorror You are at: Horror Movie News » Recent Posts » Vincent Price Classic Witchfinder General Getting a Remake Vincent Price Classic Witchfinder General Getting a Remake News While remakes have been a reality in Hollywood since the early days of film, the last few decades have brought horror fans an absolute torrent of them, sometimes begging the question of what classic genre films won’t end up getting remade at some point. The latest title to scratch off the “will this get remade” score card is Witchfinder General, a 1968 British offering from the legendary American International Pictures that starred the iconic Vincent Price. The film was based on a 1966 novel of the same name, although it once went under the name The Conqueror Worm in the United States. Supplying Price with arguably one of his most memorable villainous roles – and one of his most seriously played to boot – Witchfinder General has gone on to develop quite the reputation in the decades since its release, and has also proved influential on future films exploring similar subject matter.

Spearheading a remake of Witchfinder General is eclectic director Nicolas Winding Refn, helmer of “love them or hate them” films like Drive, Only God Forgives, and the upcoming arthouse horror flick The Neon Demon. Refn will be sticking to the producer position on Witchfinder General though, similar to how he’s currently producing a remake of William Lustig’s 80’s slasher Maniac Cop. There’s no word yet on who will actually direct Witchfinder General’s remake, or who will take over the lead role, but whoever gets the latter job will definitely have big shoes to fill. Price is a legend for a reason, and the new actor who plays Matthew Hopkins is well advised to try and make the role his own if he hopes to succeed in escaping from his predecessor’s long shadow.

Question: Who played the title role in the 1968 film ‘Witchfinder General’?
Answer: Vincent Price