This is part eight of a thirteen part series
Rarely do films court so much controversy and acclaim. Filmed in the fall of 1967 and released to a thoroughly unprepared world in May of 1968, “Witchfinder General” (which was also released as “Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General” and the Edgar Allan Poe-themed “The Conqueror Worm”) was one of the first punk rock horror films. Made on a shoestring budget, “Witchfinder General,” according to Benjamin Halligan’s book “Michael Reeves,” was initially viewed as little more than a tax write-off by Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson - the two men in charge of the legendary studio American International Pictures. AIP spent a good bit of coin in producing “Witchfinder General,” but, despite the sizable contribution of Tigon British Film Productions (the production company who first conceived of the film after buying the rights to Ronald Bassett’s 1966 novel of the same name), the film still wound up looking down and dirty.
The unsentimental grittiness of “Witchfinder General” is one of the film’s trademark characteristics, along with what Empire Magazine writer Simon Braund calls its “uncompromisingly brutal” eschewing of melodrama. Unlike its peers in either the United Kingdom or North America, “Witchfinder General” is a horror film without over-the-top theatrics or garish splashes of supernatural color. Instead, director Michael Reeves’ final film is a quick, bloody, and somewhat nihilistic depiction of human depravity. No monsters need apply: Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins is evil enough for everybody.
Because of its gratuitous nature and its various on-screen depictions of torture and rape, “Witchfinder General” was mostly met with outright contempt in the press. Although the Sunday Times, The Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph rarely agree on anything, they all agreed in 1968 that “Witchfinder General” was somewhere between a low-brow appeal to thuggish violence and a prurient attempt at softcore pornography. Glancing over these reviews, one comes upon words such as “sadistic,” “torture,” and “morally rotten.” Writing in his regular column for the BBC magazine The Listener, playwright Alan Bennett claimed that the film made him feel physically dirty, almost as if all the unwashed stink of the film’s seventeenth century exploded right out of the reels and onto his lap.
While there were those who applauded the film for being truly horrifying (which it is) and being an expert example of matter-of-fact violence, these voices were few and far between in the late 1960s. Over time though, “Witchfinder General” gained a cult following and even a critical one. Even more importantly, “Witchfinder General” has had a large influence on the world of popular music, especially the dank realm of heavy metal. Obviously, the NWOBHM and proto-doom act Witchfinder General were (and probably still are) fans of the film, while bands such as Cathedral and Electric Wizard have paid homage to the film with songs and sound clips (“Hopkins [The Witchfinder General]” by the former, “I, The Witchfinder” by the latter). Because of this, and because of the poetic fact that the twenty-five year-old Reeves died from an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol less than a year after the film’s release, “Witchfinder General” has become firmly entrenched in the collective pulp consciousness.
The film opens with an execution. Set against the backdrop of an overcast sky, the opening scene follows a group of villagers as they drag a screaming woman towards a gibbet. On that gibbet, which sits atop a barren and windy hill, a noose is slipped around the woman’s neck and she’s forced to drop. In the wings, a lone rider observes the whole scene. The opening credits quickly inform us that that rider is one Matthew Hopkins - the lecherous, corrupt, and contemptible witchfinder who is played brilliantly by the horror icon Price. Initially, Donald Pleasence was cast in the role, and in the original script (which was penned by Tom Baker and Reeves), Hopkins was written as a bumbling authority figure. Considering the combined age of Reeves and Baker, the Pleasence Hopkins was intended to be a very countercultural send-up of the British status-quo, but when AIP got involved, they demanded that the stately Price be cast in the title role. Because of this, a new script (which had extra help from producer Louis M. Heyward) was rushed through which transformed Hopkins into an arch villain motivated by greed and personal power.
According to various histories of the film’s production, the upstart Reeves and the aging Price butted heads constantly. This conflict did not translate to the screen however, and Price is at his most menacing in “Witchfinder General.” He is not alone either, for Robert Russell plays the equally villainous John Stearne - a drunken lout of a man who genuinely enjoys torturing accused witches. Since “Witchfinder General” lacks any real witchcraft or practicing Satanists, the evil of Hopkins and Stearne goes without dilution.
An early voiceover in the film tells us that all the action takes place in the year 1645. In British history, one would be hard pressed to find a more important date. In that year, the pivotal English Civil War, which began in 1642, finally began to favor Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians, and in June of that year, the Parliamentarian victory at Naseby (which is talked about at length in “Witchfinder General”) finally sealed the fate of the Royalist cause. In “Witchfinder General,” our main protagonist is the Parliamentarian soldier Richard Marshall (played by Ian Ogilvy). Marshall is a dashing and brave cavalry officer who is set to marry a beautiful country girl named Sara (played by Hilary Dwyer). Sara lives with her uncle John Lowes (played by Rupert Davies, the British actor famous for his Hammer runs and his time spent playing the French detective Maigret), a clergyman.
After Marshall is granted leave, Lowes agrees to give Sara’s hand to Marshall in marriage, and the two lovers consummate the blessing even before the ringing of the wedding bells. Tragically, this small glimmer of hope for the future is dashed when Lowes is accused of being both a witch and a Papist (a Roman Catholic). Hopkins and Stearne come calling, and the pair of witchfinders torture the hoy man in his own home with a dagger. This is the first tough scene in the film, and if you happen to find yourself one of the heavily censored copies of “Witchfinder General,” you’ll notice a dramatic shift in the cinematography.
When Sara is alerted to the torture session, she moves to stop Hopkins and Stearne. At first she tells Hopkins that she was adopted by Lowes, and thus is free of the clergyman’s wicked bloodline. Next, in a very awkward scene, she gives her body to Hopkins in exchange for the release of Lowes. Hopkins agrees to stop torturing Sara’s poor uncle, but he keeps him locked in his private dungeon. Growing suspicious of Hopkins’ sudden decision to spare the clergyman, Stearne decides to investigate the witchfinder’s movements. Eventually he gets wise to Hopkins’
late night assignations with Sara, and so he sets out to rectify the situation by raping Sara in broad daylight. It works, and before long Lowes is again tortured before he is submitted to the trial by ordeal (aka thrown into a river to see if he floats or not) with two other accused witches.
When Marshall goes looking for horses for Cromwell’s army of red coats, he hears of the recent goings-on involving Hopkins and Stearne. In a panic, he finds Sara and learns all about her recent anguish. The two perform an impromptu marriage ceremony in a wrecked church, then Marshall swears to avenge his wife’s honor.
First, he finds Stearne drinking in a pub. This leads to small skirmish which forces both men to flee, with Marshall going back to the war and Stearne going back to Hopkins. Marshall is saved from a court martial by a grateful superior (whose life was earlier saved by Marshall), but his reward is a date with destiny at Naseby.
Hopkins and Stearne have a run-in with the military themselves, and after both agree not to donate their horses to Cromwell’s cause, they are chased after by mounted soldiers. In the scuffle, Hopkins leaves Stearne to his fate, while Stearne narrowly avoids dying from a pistol shot. There’s supposedly no honor among thieves, and there’s definitely no loyalty between witchfinders.
By the film’s final twenty minutes, both Marshall and Stearne are hunting after Hopkins, with the former doing so under the guise of a Cromwell-mandated mission. Specifically, General Cromwell (who is portrayed in the film by Patrick Wymark) has ordered Marshall to stop King Charles II from escaping to Europe, but as luck would have it, Marshall’s mission puts him on the trail of Hopkins. By this point, Hopkins is professing his allegiance to the Parliamentarian cause, and as such his witch trials and executions are deemed an essential part of the Cromwellian cause. In his own words, Hopkins is now Parliament’s Witchfinder General.
Hopkins cannot enjoy his powerful title for long though, and while he is hunting suspected witches on England’s southeastern coast, he spots Sara in a village where he has recently burned a woman at the stake. Seeing an opportunity to be rid of both Sara and Marshall, Hopkins and Stearne (who has forgiven Hopkins for his abandonment) decide to accuse the pair of witchcraft, and with the help of the local magistrate, Marshall and Sara are graphically tortured in a remote castle.
In the final scene, Marshall’s fellow soldiers come to his rescue, but what they find repels them. Marshall has broken free of his captures, and after kicking in Stearne’s eye, he has taken to chopping Hopkins with a hatchet. One of the soldiers (who is played by “Pyschomania” star Nicky Henson) puts Hopkins out of his misery with a pistol shot. In a rage, Marshall screams “You took him from me!” and the films ends on an especially psychotic note.
This final scene is one of the best depictions of someone going “blood simple” (to lift a phrase from Dashiell Hammett), and its gory glory has become one of the more memorable aspects of “Witchfinder General.” Overall, Reeves’ cinematic swan song is a revolutionary piece that heralded in the new age of excessive bloodletting in film. It’s hard to imagine what 1970s horror would look like without “Witchfinder General.” Frankly, as a film fan and as a horror hound, I don’t want to imagine a world without “Witchfinder General,” for that would be truly terrifying.
Words: Benjamin Welton