Witchfinder General
(aka: The Conqueror Worm
(1968)
review by Black Gloves

The name Michael Reeves has attained almost legendary status with genre buffs since the release, over thirty years ago, of the film that is generally considered his masterpiece - "The Witchfinder General" (renamed "The Conqueror Worm in the US to cash in on its star, Vincent Price's association with Edgar Allan Poe, thanks to the actors' frequent appearances in Roger Corman's many Poe adaptations). A precocious talent, famed for his apparently relentless confidence in himself and his abilities, Reeves lived for cinema but managed to make only three movies before dying in mysterious circumstances (from an apparently accidental overdose of prescription drugs) at the ludicrous age of twenty-four. Reeves' subsequent reputation has been built almost entirely on the strength of the promise shown in those three completed movies: The first, "The She-Beast", was an Italian made monster-movie - sold on the back of the involvement of Horror icon Barbara Steele - and was a fairly unremarkable piece of work; the second was a vast improvement although it has dated rather badly since; "The Sorcerers" stars Boris Karloff in one of his final roles, playing a scientist who creates a machine that gives him the ability to remotely experience another persons sensations; but it was his final film (the director died only eighteen months later) that has truly been responsible for Reeves' awesome status. Thanks to its maturity and the skill and passion Reeves brought to the project, "The Witchfinder General" has since earned a special place, alongside "The Wicker Man" and "Peeping Tom", as one of the most important films in British Horror.

The film is based around the real-life exploits of a character from one of the darker periods in England's history: Matthew Hopkins. He was a lawyer who travelled the English countryside during the tumultuous years of the English civil war, when the rule of law had largely broken down, seeking out those accused of witchcraft and subjecting then to his own 'special' brand of justice. In these times, magistrates were largely free of any control from central Government as King Charles' royalist troops fought against Cromwell's Roundheads for control of a country that had become torn by a lethal combination of religious strife and superstition. People would take the opportunity to settle old scores by accusing their enemies of witchcraft or of consorting with "familiars" (an evil spirit in the form of a small animal [in the film, two characters are accused of conversing with a black cat and a stoat!] used by the witch to accomplish evil errands), and many felt that their religious adversaries really were agents of the Devil. In this atmosphere, Hopkins found he could make a tidy living by charging clients to have him obtain confessions of witchcraft and then punish those found guilty. Hopkins and his assistant, John Stearne, devised many methods to reveal Satan's influence, these days it is clear that their methods involved nothing more than a combination of torture and sleep deprivation. It was believed that a witch had extra 'teats' hidden on their bodies to feed their familiars, which were visible as "the mark of Satan." Hopkins would insert a blade into any suspicious looking crevice on the body of the accused and if they felt no pain or failed to bleed, then this was taken as evidence of the devil's mark! Also, because water was associated with the baptism, it was thought that a witch would repel it - so the method of "floating" was devised whereby a suspect would be bound up and thrown into a body of water (usually a moat) attached to a length of rope. If the person floated (or swam!) then this would be taken as evidence of their being a witch, while if they didn't (and consequently drowned) they were pronounced innocent!

Reeves' film portrays all of this madness unflinchingly. The film came at a time when the Gothic/Romantic style of British horror movie, as pioneered by Hammer studios, was beginning to show signs of going out of fashion. George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" was on the horizon - and with it, a new emphasis on graphic violence and more human, psychological themes -- exploring fears conjured up by the social revolution of the sixties. In a way "The Witchfinder General" has much in common with Romero's film in that it depicts the undermining of a society and displays a chronic pessimism about the human condition. The film also initiated the first stirrings of unease that would come to characterise critical reactions to the new horror. The comedian and playwright Alan Bennet famously described The Witchfinder General as "the most sadistic and morally rotten film I have ever seen".

The film certainly pulls no punches in it's depiction of violence and the portrayal of the terrors inflicted on a helpless populace as superstition and sadism combine to take advantage of the crumbling of civil society; and although obviously rather tame-looking these days it is still very powerful. But the horrors of Reeves' film are rendered all the more acute by the knowledge that many of them actually happened. Even many of the characters in the film -- like the vicar of Brandeston, John Lowes, who was a victim of Hopkins -- actually lived, and the film was shot against the deceptively beautiful backdrop of the Suffolk and Buckinghamshire countryside. In fact, the English landscape is shot with exquisite care by cinematographer Johnny Coquillon ("Straw Dogs") and helps ground in reality a story that displays the same themes of loyalty, love and revenge that one would usually expect to find in a John Ford Western. For that is really what the film is story wise: a Western set in 17th century England!

Ian Ogilvy plays soldier Richard Marshall, who is fighting for Cromwell's Parliamentary Party. He takes a few days leave to visit his fiancé, Sara (Hilary Dwyer) in the Suffolk village of Brandestone. Sara's uncle, John Lowes (Rupert Davies) is worried about recent accusations that he is a papist, levelled against him by some locals, and asks Marshall to take Sara away as soon as possible. A few days later though, Lowes is put on trial and executed as a witch when his accusers employ Matthew Hopkins to interrogate him; Sara is also raped by one of Hopkins' henchmen. When Richard finds out, he swears revenge on Hopkins, risking court-marshal to pursue him across the East Anglican countryside.

Vincent Price took the role of Matthew Hopkins at the behest of the film's American backers AIP; Reeves had wanted the role to go to Donald Pleasance and was worried that Price would give one of his over-the-top performances -- but in fact, Price plays the role with clever understatement: his interpretation of Hopkins' character is of a detached, icy-hearted sociopath - who takes a calm and chillingly measured pleasure in the suffering of his hapless victims, and who clearly enjoys the power he has come to wield over peoples' lives. The film is replete with strong performances all round: Hilary Dwyer as Richard's fiancé, Sara, displays just the right amount of fragile beauty combined with steel in the face of overwhelming adversity to make Richard's quest for vengeance entirely sympathetic. The film's conclusion is made all the more shocking because of it. The biggest revelation though is Ian Ogilvy. Aside from a brief stint as Roger Moore's replacement as The Saint, Ogilvy has been mostly restricted to fairly minor roles throughout his career. A big childhood friend of director Michael Reeves, Ogilvy appeared as the lead in all three of his films - but "The Witchfinder General" must be one of his greatest performances. For most of the film Ogilvy plays the usual romantic lead ... the handsome hero who sets off to rescue the fair maiden from the forces of evil. But in the final third of the film, Richard Marshall's lust for revenge gets more and more acute, until, in the final scenes, when Marshall is forced to witness Sara's torture without being able to do anything to stop it, he is pushed over the edge into insanity. Ogilvy's performance, when he finally gets his chance for revenge, produces one of the scariest and brutal scenes in the film.

The region 2 DVD from Metrodome contains both the export cut of the film and the Directors preferred cut. A few extra scenes of violence were filmed for the export market where such things were deemed more acceptable; however, these extra scenes look like they came from a VHS source by the look of them, so there is a rather distracting drop in the quality of the image every time one of these inserted scenes appears. The directors cut plays much better as a result, even though it is slightly less graphic. The anamorphic widescreen transfer of the film is fairly good otherwise, although slightly too dark in places. The extras aren't bad: the best of them being a 25 minute documentary on the films of Michael Reeves that contains clips from all three of his films and interviews with the people who knew and worked with him; while the worst is an awful rock video for some band called Cathedral fronted by some gormless idiot, who have wrangled their way onto this disc simply by including samples of Vincent Price in their song. The rest of the extras are the usual collection of trailers, image galleries and filmographies we have come to expect - although the production notes by Kim Newman are well worth a read. It's a pity that we don't get a commentary track since Reeves worked with the same group of people often -- some of them he'd known since childhood. A Commentary by Tom Baker and Ian Ogilvy might well have turned out to be very informative. All in all though, this is quite a strong release of an essential british horror movie.