Deeper into the Vincent Price Blu-Ray boxset, I’ve finally come to the acclaimed folk-horror film, Witchfinder General (1968), which has the reputation of being one of Price’s finest performances. Having seen it, I think his acting is as good as he is in many of the other Corman/Poe movies, but maybe it is more that director Michael Reeves aimed for a more intense, realistic film. That, and whereas there’s usually something likeable or charming about Price’s other villains – here, he’s quite a hateful sort. There’s still plenty of derring do here, but no actual witches or anything supernatural. Rather, the horror comes from the era of lawlessness, superstition and manipulation in representing a version of the notorious Matthew Hopkins (Price), the self-appointed Witchfinder General during the English Civil War of 1645, who with his thuggish assistant John Stearne (Robert Russell), moves from village to village, collecting money from country folk to “investigate” witches or those in league with the devil. This basically amounted to torture and murder, and it’s even a more grim prospect when you read up on the fact that it was real (resulting in hundreds of deaths). Thankfully the movie deviates from history and offers a revenge plot: a dashing soldier (Ian Oglilvy) seeks out Hopkins on account of how he’d tortured and abused his bride (Hilary Dwyer) while sentencing her uncle, a priest, to death. Even for a late-1960s film, there is some nasty violence (despite the red paint looking blood) and the fastidious Hopkins and the loutish Stearne are truly a despicable pair. Apparently, director Reeves clashed with Price on set – he’d originally wanted Donald Pleasance but producers cast the more bankable Price; still, the result was something Price was proud of despite the on set tension, and it became a cult classic, particularly a key text in the area of ‘folk horror’ (along with the original The Wicker Man). Recommended.
VHS Tracking 