Witchfinder General

"Surely the most immoral thing in any form of entertainment is the conditioning of the audience to accept and enjoy violence? Violence is horrible, degrading, and sordid. Insofar as one is going to show it on the screen at all, it should be presented as such — and the more people it shocks into sickened recognition of these facts the better." - Michael Reeves, co-writer/director, Witchfinder General

As British horror was coasting on the fumes of Hammer and Amicus in the late '60s, a young filmmaker in his early 20s made a cynical, despondent genre film that spit in the face of humankind. Exploiting contemptible behaviors like the abuse of power, sadism, materialism, lust, and vengeance under the seditious costumes of religious extremism, government and military authority, and even matrimonial loyalty, Michael Reeves' 1968 film Witchfinder General was a wicked and startling gut punch to gentle filmgoers of the era. Reeves' death at the age of 25 from an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol shortly after the film's release only boosted its mythic reputation, which was already in motion because of the film's heightened realism and ultraviolence (Reeves was true to his words above).

Witchfinder General is a loosely fictionalized account of Matthew Hopkins (a 'witchfinder' from the 1640s) based on a historical novel by Ronald Bassett and starring horror icon Vincent Price as the titular Hopkins. The film follows Price and his chief henchman Robert Russell as they travel though the rural British countryside, hanging and burning women and men at their whim after torturing 'confessions' out of the 'evildoers' and 'Satanists.' They are paid in silver for every body. Ian Ogilvy is a young and upcoming roundhead soldier who is engaged to a striking young woman, Hilary Heath. Heath's uncle, a priest, is captured and tortured by Hopkins, but kept alive with the understanding that Heath will sexually service Hopkins in return for his mercy. When she has a change of heart, her uncle is swiftly hanged. Ogilvy hears of the news, and races to Heath's aid. After finding her safely, he kneels before her uncle's alter and swears to exact revenge on Hopkins. Ogilvy sends Heath on to another town for safety, and briefly hunts for Hopkins before returning to his regiment to avert desertion charges. Hopkins travels to the town where Heath is hiding on an unrelated witchfinding job. Ogilvy learns of the news and abandons his regiment to again race to her rescue. After briefly reuniting, the couple are discovered and captured by Hopkins, and then taken to a dungeon for the purpose of extracting confessions. The film ends in a flurry of violence and madness.

Witchfinder General's narrative of corruption and revenge is a straightforward transplant of Western genre themes to the woods and rural towns of seventeenth century England, and Witchfinder's kinship with the B-grade Western cinema of Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, and early Sam Peckinpah — although Witchfinder slightly predates the violent nihilism of The Wild Bunch (1969) — is clear to see. It's no coincidence that Witchfinder cinematographer John Coquillon would later photograph several films for Peckinpah, including Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Although Witchfinder General's narrative seems a bit pedestrian today, in the context of its era the film had additional importance for the generational division represented in the clash between the elder, ethically compromised Price and the youthful, vindictive Ogilvy. In that context, Reeves' sudden death after Witchfinder must have intensified its pessimistic and morose message.

Witchfinder General was one of the first breakers in a wave of ultraviolence that soared to seedier heights in '70s European horror and exploitation cinema, and it's been a slow ride to hell since, with today's fashionable rage being the overt exploitation extremism of Japan's Takashi Miike. Returning to Witchfinder's grim tone and torturous violence today seems like a humdrum exercise, not because Witchfinder has lost its power, but because the 'dark' and 'bleak' cinema model is a worn-out, overused nag to those of us with wardrobes not limited to black. But if one can see beyond the drudgery of 'shock' cinema, Witchfinder General is a wonderful demonstration of cinematic technique and aesthetics in genre. Its opening hanging scene is simply masterful, with its tilted camera angles, tracking shots that expertly glide to give a brilliantly disorienting effect, and artistic frame compositions mixing long shots of the sky, the countryside, and the gallows amongst the procession, with tight close-ups that look down upon the witnesses and observe the furrowed brow of the priest as he condemns the victim. The film is full of pleasurable observations, such as following the subtle differences in how Reeves and Coquillon present their characters — observe how the camera is usually looking up at Price, while looking down on Ogilvy, for example. Reeves had a distinct, imaginative grasp of cinema, and it's a shame that such a young talent was recklessly extinguished at the start of what would have surely been a fascinating career.

Metrodome has released Witchfinder General on a special edition DVD that includes anamorphic widescreen 'Director's' and 'Export' cuts of the film. The former reinserts scenes that were edited by the BBFC at the time of its release, and the latter inserts alternate takes (i.e., takes with more nudity) of scenes that were filmed for more liberal markets. Both cuts contain the film's original orchestral score as composed by Paul Ferris, not the Kendall Schmidt synthesizer score that was substituted in the US version of the film, retitled Edgar Allen Poe's Conqueror Worm by US co-producer AIP to cash in on its series of Vincent Price/Roger Corman Poe adaptations. Metrodome's DVD transfer of the film is outstanding, with clean, solid colors, and a smooth, film-like image. The film's source material does contain some grain and occasional scratches and nicks due to wear and tear, but that's to be expected from a 24-year-old film shot on a £82,000 budget. The insert shots in both cuts aren't so great however, and a warning for a 'variation in picture and sound quality' precedes each film to alert the viewer of the jarring experience that follows. The insert shots look downright blurry, almost if they were mastered from a second-generation videotape copy. The inserts are interesting to watch once or twice, but they're hardly essential to non-completists, so it may have been a better choice to offer the inserts as supplements, or to offer a seamless branching option that delegates the decision to the viewer (I suspect the latter option was probably out of Metrodome's budget). However, a Region 1 NTSC DVD of the US theatrical version Edgar Allen Poe's Conqueror Worm is on the market without the inserts (but with the Kendall Schmidt score) via MGM/UA's budget Midnite Movies line.

Metrodome's Witchfinder General DVD's special edition content includes a 22-minute documentary titled Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves, which was produced and directed by Andy Starke and Pete Tombs, who featured Reeves in their Eurotika series in 1999 (I assume the documentary is a reworking or update to the Eurotika piece, although I haven't had the opportunity to see an Eurotika episode here in the US). Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves is best enjoyed for the reminiscing of former Reeves colleagues like Ogilvy, screenwriter Tom Baker, producer Paul Maslansky, and old Tigon man Tony Tenser. Beware of film clips in the doc that spoil major portions of not only Witchfinder General, but significant portions of Reeves' other two films, including the ending of The Sorcerers (the documentary is duplicated on Metrodome's The Sorcerers Special Edition DVD). Like the feature, the documentary is also presented in anamorphic widescreen, but note that first pressings of the DVD have playback problems where the documentary's anamorphic flag is not recognized on some DVD players, causing the doc to play back anamorphically 'squeezed' on 4:3 displays. This problem was corrected in subsequent pressings of the DVD, which can be identified by a small Salvation Films logo on the back cover that wasn't present on the first pressing's back cover. The DVD also contains extensive, well-written, and very informative production notes by Kim Newman, and a 9-minute image gallery montage (with 20 chapter stops) that unspools to a soundtrack music loop. The DVD also includes a hilariously cheesy doom metal rock video of the song 'Matthew Hopkins' by the band Cathedral, featuring big hair and breast-augmented, scantily-clad rock girls, that would have been much more appropriate as an easily-found Easter egg.

Reviewed by Todd Harbour