Witchfinder General (film)
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Witchfinder General is a 1968 horror film directed by Michael Reeves, starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, and Hilary Dwyer. The film was coproduced by Tigon British Film Productions and American International Pictures. It was retitled The Conqueror Worm in the United States in an attempt to link it with an earlier series of Edgar Allan Poe films starring Price — although this movie has little to do with Poe and only briefly alludes to the poem.
The film details the heavily fictionalized murderous exploits of Matthew Hopkins, an historical figure who had been appointed by Parliament during the English Civil War to root out sorcery and witchcraft. Director and co-writer Reeves featured many scenes of intense onscreen torture and violence that were considered unusually sadistic at the time. Upon its theatrical release throughout the spring and summer of 1968, the movie was met with disgust by film critics in the UK, and nearly completely ignored by reviewers in the U.S. It has gradually developed a large cult following and several prominent critics have championed the film, including J. Hoberman and Danny Peary. In 2005, the magazine Total Film named Witchfinder General the 15th greatest horror film of all time.
Plot synopsis
The year is 1645 — the middle of the English Civil War. Matthew Hopkins, an opportunist and witchhunter, takes advantage of the breakdown in social order to impose a reign of terror on East Anglia. Hopkins and his assistant, John Stearne (Robert Russell), visit village after village, brutally torturing confessions out of suspected witches. They make a small fortune by charging local magistrates for each and every woman they execute.
Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) is a young Roundhead. After surviving a brief skirmish and killing his first enemy soldier, he rides home to Brandeston, Suffolk to visit his lover Sara (Hilary Dwyer). Sara is the niece of the village’s parson, John Lowes (Rupert Davies), a kindly old man who is nonetheless viewed with suspicion by some of the villagers for his relatively unorthodox views. Lowes delightedly gives his permission to Marshall to marry Sara. Marshall vows to Sara that “no harm will ever come to you.” That same night, Marshall rides back to join his regiment, and chances upon Hopkins and Stearne on the path. Marshall gives the two men directions to Brandeston, then rides on.
In Brandeston, Hopkins and Stearne immediately begin rounding up suspects and killing them. Lowes is tortured and thrown into a cell. He has needles stuck into his back (in an attempt to locate the so-called “Devil’s Mark”) and is about to be killed when Sara stops Hopkins by seducing him. She offers him sexual favors every night in exchange for the safety of her uncle. Hopkins agrees. Soon, Hopkins is called away to another village. Stearne takes advantage of Hopkins' absence and rapes Sara. When Hopkins returns and finds out what Stearne has done, Hopkins will have nothing further to do with the young woman. Stearne begins to torture Lowes again. Right before departing the village, Hopkins and Stearne execute Lowes and two women.
Marshall returns to Brandeston and is horrified by what has happened to Sara. He vows to murder both Hopkins and Stearne. He “marries” Sara in a ceremony of his own devising, and instructs her to leave to Lavenham. He then rides off by himself. In the meantime, Hopkins has deserted the unreliable Stearne, who subsequently vows blood himself against his former employer. Marshall locates Stearne, but after a brutal fight, he is able to escape. Stearne reunites with Hopkins and informs him of Marshall’s desire for revenge.
Hopkins and Stearne enter the village of Lavenham. Marshall learns they are there and quickly rides to the village with a group of his soldier friends. Hopkins, however, having earlier learned that Sara was in Lavenham, has set a trap to capture Marshall. Hopkins and Stearne frame Marshall and Sara as witches and drag them off to a dungeon prison. They are horribly tortured but both refuse to confess. Marshall watches Sara being tortured, and breaks free from his bonds at the same time his army friends begin to make their way into the prison. Consumed by hatred and impending madness, Marshall grabs an axe and repeatedly hacks Hopkins into bloody pieces. The soldiers enter the room and are horrified to see what their friend has done. One of them puts the mutilated but still living Hopkins out of his misery by shooting him in the head. Marshall’s mind snaps and he shrilly screams, “You took him away from me!” Sara, also apparently on the brink of insanity, screams uncontrollably over and over again.
Production
Tigon Productions owned the rights to Ronald Bassett's novel, Witchfinder General, which was based very loosely on an historical figure named Matthew Hopkins, a witchhunter who claimed to have been commissioned by Parliament to prosecute and execute witches. Tigon offered the film to Michael Reeves, who had just completed The Sorcerers, starring Boris Karloff. Reeves and Tom Baker wrote a screenplay with Donald Pleasence firmly in mind as the film's star. However, once American International Pictures became involved in the production, they insisted that their contract star, Vincent Price, be given the lead. Williams, Lucy Chase. The Complete Films of Vincent Price, Citadel Press, 1995. ISBN 0806516003Production began on 18 September, 1967 with a budget of £82,000 (£50,000 from Tigon British, and £32,000 from American International Pictures). Interiors were filmed in two specially converted aircraft hangers near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, and the exterior shots ranged from Brandeston and Lavenham to the Dunwich Coast. The climax of the film was shot at Orford Castle. Filming wrapped on November 13, 1967.
The production went relatively smoothly except for the unrelentingly antagonistic relationship that developed between Reeves and Price. Reeves kept it no secret from everybody associated with the production that the American actor was not his choice for the role, and the director's comments had reached the actor back in the U.S. Reeves refused the courtesy of meeting Price at the airport when he arrived in England. "Take me to your goddamn young genius," Price reportedly said to co-producer Phil Waddilove.McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0786401370
According to Kim Newman in his book, Nightmare Movies, when Reeves made a suggestion on the set, Price objected and told the director: "I've made 87 films. What have you done?" And Reeves responded: "I've made three good ones."Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies: A Critical Guide to Contemporary Horror Films, Harmony Books, 1988. ISBN 0517573660 Price later complained: "Michael Reeves could not communicate with actors. He would stop me and say, "Don't move your head like that." And I would say, "Like what? What do you mean?" He'd say, "There -- you're doing it again. Don't do that." Price reportedly became so upset with Reeves that he refused to watch the film's dailies. Later, when Price finally saw the movie, he admitted that he understood what Reeves had been after and wrote the young director a ten page letter praising the film. Reeves wrote Price back, "I knew you would think so." Years after Reeves' death, Price said, "...I realized what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it, but I was fighting him almost every step of the way. Had I known what he wanted, I would have cooperated."McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0786401370
The film's violent climax was edited together in its present shape due to a continuity problem. In the screenplay, the soldier played by Nicky Henson was supposed to shoot both Price and Ogilvy to death. However, the actor only had one flintlock pistol, which had been clearly established in previous scenes, and was therefore only able to shoot one person. When the error was discovered, Reeves immediately told the actor: "All right, just shoot Vincent and I'll get Ian to scream and shout and go mad and freeze frame on Hilary Dwyer screaming."Fleming, John. Hammer's House of Horror Magazine, Issue # 1 (U.S. version), Article on Witchfinder General, pgs 16 - 19
Several "alternate" nude scenes were filmed during the production, reportedly solely intended for the movie's German release version.McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0786401370 None of these scenes were made available in the theatrical versions released in the U.S. or UK, although they were reportedly included in the videotape version released in the mid-1980s by HBO Home Video.
Response
For its time, Witchfinder General was considered an unusually sadistic film experience. British film censor John Trevelyan was reportedly a friend of Michael Reeves and accepted the director’s good intentions when Reeves explained why he felt it was necessary to include such intense violence in the movie. Trevelyan nonetheless argued, “The film gave the impression that it was exploiting violence, and in particular, sadism for commercial reasons.” Consequently, the film was cut extensively for its British release. Reportedly nearly four complete minutes of what was described as “excesses of sadistic brutality” were removed. Reeves refused to take part in the cutting, but when he saw the edited result, he admitted to Trevelyan that the film had not been harmed as much as he had expected.Fleming, John. Hammer's House of Horror Magazine, Issue # 1 (U.S. version), Article on Witchfinder General, pgs 16 - 19
Even the truncated version was met with considerable controversy by UK film critics. Dilys Powell in the The London Sunday Times complained “….17th century hanging, burning, raping, screaming, and Vincent Price as England’s prize torturer-overseer. Peculiarly nauseating.” The Guardian felt the film was filled with “gratuitous sadism.” Margaret Hinxman of The Sunday Telegraph dismissed it as a “sadistic extravaganza.” Nonetheless, several critics felt the film was worth accolades. John Russell Taylor in the London Times Saturday Review said the film “…is quite happily and deliberately a horror film: that is to say, it has no particular pretensions to being anything else…There is much in it which would win Michael Reeves an important reputation if he were dealing with some more pretentious, but fundamentally no more serious subject…Mr. Reeves is no longer merely promising. He already has real achievements behind him: not merely good horror films, but good films, period.” Films and Filming noted, “Witchfinder General has no explicit ‘message’, but it does say something about the springs of despair and it says it forcefully. It is a very frightening film…Matthew Hopkins is the best of Price’s recent performances. Witchfinder General is emphatically not a horror film; it is, however, a very horrifying one…”
In the U.S., the film was not subject to any censorship at all, and was released virtually intact to drive-ins. However, in an attempt to link the film with Roger Corman’s earlier Edgar Allan Poe series of films, it was retitled The Conqueror Worm. Brief prologue and epilogue narrations (by Price) taken from Poe’s poem were added to justify the new title. As Danny Peary noted in his Cult Movies book, the film went nearly unnoticed by critics: “The few snoozing trade reviewers who saw it treated it as just another entry in AIP’s Edgar Allan Poe series…and gave it such dismal notices that future bookings were scarce."Peary, Danny. Cult Movies, Delta Books, 1981. ISBN 0517201852 Hollywood Citizen News was appalled by the film: “A disgrace to the producers and scripters, and a sad commentary on the art of filmmaking…a film with such bestial brutality and orgiastic sadism, one wonders how it ever passed customs to be released in this country.” The trade journal Box Office noted that: “Fans of the horror film will be glad to know that Vincent Price is back to add another portrait to his gallery of arch-fiends…bathed in the most stomach-churning gore imaginable…” Despite the lack of critical support, the movie was a modest success stateside, reportedly earning $1.5 million for AIP.Biordowski, Steve and Del Valle, David. Cinefantastique magazine, Vol 19 No.1/Vol 19 No. 2 (January 1989), "Vincent Price: Horror's Crown Prince", pgs 40 - 85; 120
The film's retitling by AIP caused a minor fracas in Hong Kong. A group of British sailors had seen the movie at the base theater under its original title and one week later unwittingly saw the movie again in a local theater, playing under the American release title. They immediately demanded their money back and, when the manager refused, they tipped over trashcans, threw popcorn at the screen and "almost tore the theatre apart." The manager changed his mind and paid the sailors back for the price of the tickets, and sent a bill to AIP for the damages. McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0786401370
Very soon after its initial release in the spring of 1968, several critics began championing the film in the U.K. and U.S. David Pirie, who wrote extensively and enthusiastically about the film in his 1973 book A Heritage of Horror, reviewed the film in 1971 for Time Out, commenting: “…one of the most personal and mature statements in the history of British cinema…The performances are generally excellent, and no film before or since has used the British countryside in quite the same way.” Danny Peary noted, “The Conqueror Worm is a stunning film in many ways, but probably Reeves’s greatest achievement is that he was able to maintain an extraordinary momentum throughout, until the film ends as it began, with a woman (this time Sara) screaming.” In 2000, Derek Malcolm included Witchfinder General as part of his series The Century of Films, a list of what he considered to be the one hundred most "artistically or culturally important" movies of the 20th Century. Malcolm noted that the film "...is one of the most compulsively watchable ever made in Britain...Witchfinder transcends its genre with the sheer panache of its making." More recently, J. Hoberman of the Village Voice stated that the film “…has long been a cult item -- in part because its talented 25-year-old director, Michael Reeves, died of a drug overdose before the film's release, but mainly because it is an extraordinarily bleak story of political evil...Reeves shot on location and the movie has a robust autumnal quality perfectly matched by Price's overripe performance…it remains contemporary, and even frightening, in its evocation of cynical Puritanism and mass deception.”
Influence
Writer Mark Thomas McGee noted that Witchfinder General "did fantastic business and kicked off a second wave of Edgar Allan Poe movies" produced by American International Pictures, including Gordon Hessler's The Oblong Box starring Price (originally scheduled to be directed by Reeves but handed over to Hessler upon Reeves's death) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971).McGee, Mark Thomas. Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0786401370This new "series" was short-lived and effectively over by 1971.
According to AIP's Louis Heyward, Witchfinder General "was very successful in Germany -- it was the most successful of the violence pictures -- it started a vogue."Biordowski, Steve and Del Valle, David. Cinefantastique magazine, Vol 19 No.1/Vol 19 No. 2 (January 1989), "Vincent Price: Horror's Crown Prince", pgs 40 - 85; 120 "Copycat" films financed, or partially financed, by German production companies included Mark of the Devil (1970), with Herbert Lom and Udo Kier, Night of the Blood Monster (1970), directed by Jesus Franco and starring Christopher Lee, and Hexen geschändet und zu Tode gequält (1972), released in the U.S. years later on video as Mark of the Devil Part II.
The film has had a minor influence on heavy metal music. In 1980, the movie inspired a band to call themselves Witchfinder General. The group broke up in 1983. Another metal band, Cathedral, released a 1996 EP titled Hopkins (The Witchfinder General), featuring a song called "Matthew Hopkins". That song also appeared on their album, The Carnival Bizarre and the music video was included as an extra on the UK DVD release of Reeves's film. And Electric Wizard have a song from their 2000 album Dopethrone called "I, Witchfinder", although its lyrics indicate it may also have been inspired by Mark of the Devil.
Home video versions
To date, censorship and musical rights issues continue to keep a complete, pristine version of Witchfinder General from being released on videotape, laserdisc or DVD. Although uncensored theatrical prints have been available for archival showings in the U.S. for several years, video releases of the title have been continually compromised.
In 2001, a DVD was released in the UK by Metrodome consisting of two versions, the complete “Director’s Cut” containing the four minutes of previously censored violence, and an “Export Version”, also with the violence intact but including brief shots of nudity added to certain sequences. In both versions, the four minutes of violence have been taken from what has been described as “a grainy VHS source.”Some critics complained that watching the film in this manner was an often “jarring” or “distracting” viewing experience. In addition, the soundtrack of the newly inserted nude shots had “brief snippets of audio repeating itself because of the timing involved in inserting the previously cut footage”.
In the U.S., while censorship of the film has never been a factor, the film has nonetheless never been released on home video in its originally intended form. When Orion Pictures acquired the rights to many of AIP’s titles in the 1980s, they were unable to also purchase rights to the musical soundtracks of some of the films, and added synthesizer scores by composer Kendall Schmidt in lieu of the original music. Witchfinder General was one of these “problem” titles.Lucas, Tim. The Video Watchdog Book, Video Watchdog, 1992. ISBN 0963375601 Paul Ferris’s acclaimed full orchestral score has never been made available in the U.S. on any subsequent home video release, although it is included on theatrical and syndicated television prints. The HBO videotape release from the late 1980’s utilized the Orion version, which also included the nude inserts. Tim Lucas noted that the spoken soundtrack to these newly added “spicy” shots “doesn’t match it correctly."Lucas, Tim. The Video Watchdog Book, Video Watchdog, 1992. ISBN 0963375601
In 2005, writer Steve Biodrowski reported that a “definitive version” of the film had been restored and would be released in the U.S. on DVD by MGM-UA in August of 2005. However, that date has since passed and no official announcement of any release has yet made been made by MGM. The film still remains unavailable on DVD in the U.S.
References
Sources
- Unless otherwise cited, all critical review excerpts were taken from Lucy Chase Williams's book The Complete Films of Vincent Price. The Guardian and Sunday Telegraph excerpts were taken from John Fleming's article on Witchfinder General in the magazine Hammer's House of Horror.
External links
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