The Witchfinder General

Alternate titles : Mathew Hopkins : The Witchfinder General, The Conqueror Worm, The Grand Inquisitor.

Tagline : "He'll Hang, Burn and Mutilate You!"

Set in the mid 1600's, in the midst of the English Civil War between the forces of Oliver Crowell and King Charles, Vincent Price stars as Matthew Hopkins. The titular Witchfinder General of the film, who travels the Eastern counties of England, offering his services to gullible townsfolk.

When a young Roundhead cavalryman, Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy), finds that Hopkins and his assistant Stearne (Robert Russel) raped his wife Sarah (hillary Dwyer), before executing his Father-in-law for Witchcraft back in his home village. He defies orders and sets after them with a small group of soldiers, on a personal quest for revenge.

But with Hopkins well liked by the towns Magistrates, who believe him to be doing the Lord's work, bringing him down will be no easy task.

Loosely based on real events, the film features various good olde fashioned methods of torture and execution, including people being ducked, branded, beaten, stuck with needles and burned alive at the stake (sounds like a fun way to earn a living), which resulted in some of the more notorious scenes being trimmed from the original UK release by the film censors.

Vincent Price is excellent as the fiendish Witchfinder, so if your a fan of the Hammer or Amicus style of horror films, you should really enjoy this.

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines "There's a lot of screaming when there's this much at stake", "Leave the children at home, if you are squeamish, stay with them",
• According to historians, though the real Mathew Hopkins claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, there is no proof that this title was actually bestowed upon him by parliament or sanctioned by any official source. What few records there are seem to indicate his motivations for witch-hunting were more financially, than religiously, motivated, even though it is believed he was the son of a clergyman. His witch-hunting trials, which he carried out around most of East Anglia, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, started in 1645, but came to an abrupt end in 1647 when he died in his home town of Manningtree Essex.
• Vincent Price was thrown from his horse and slightly injured during the scene where he fires at some Cavalrymen with his pistol. The Director insisted they use a blank firing cap in his pistol, so they could see the flash and smoke as he fired. However, this startled the horse and Price was thrown to the ground, resulting in the loss of a days shooting.
• Though set in 17th century, if you look closely you'll notice plastic gutterings and TV aerials on the background buildings in some shots. Also, if you look at the opening shot of Matthew Hopkins on his horse, a telegraph pole is clearly visible in the background.
• The original UK theatrical release was cut by the BBFC by about 1m 26s. These shortened most of the torture scenes and the end fight. This same cut version was released onto UK video in the 80's. Redemption films released an uncut restored version in 1995, but the restored scenes were of inferior quality as they were taken from a US laserdisc.
• The European theatrical release of the film used some alternate shots during the Tavern scene, in which the young girls in it were exposing their breasts. These were included on the old Prism/Metrodome DVDs as extras, and can also be found as extras on the UK Blu-Ray by Odeon.
• The films composer Paul Ferris had a small role in the film as one of the villagers under the pseudoname Morris Jar, which was a jokey nod to the French composer Maurice Jarre.
• Director Michael Reeves wanted Donald Pleasance to play the lead role, but the American co-financers AIP insisted he use Vincent Price.
• Vincent Price frequently clashed with Director Michael Reeves during production, as Reeves resented having to use Vincent Price and Price disliked being told by a young director about him "over acting". Things came to a head when Vincent Price said to him "Young man, I have been in over 80 films, how many have you made?". To which he replied "2 good ones", which caused much amusement on set.
• The film was retitled "The Conquerer Worm" for it's US release and included a poem by Edgar Allan Poe at the beginning to try and capitalise on the success of the various Poe adaptations Price had appeared in. This was uncut, but used the "clothed" scenes from the Tavern sequence. Later video and DVD releases under this title also replaced the soundtrack with an alternate score by Kendal Scmidt, due to problems licensing the soundtrack. All current Disc releases under the original title Witchfinder General are of the original version, without the Edgar Allen Poe narratives and restores the original soundtrack.

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