So Harrowing You Just Might Welcome Commercials

Part 1:

A poster for the American version of the British film Witchfinder General, titled onscreen Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General—the American version was titled Edgar Allan Poe’s The Conqueror Worm—reads, “Leave the children home! ...and if you are squeamish stay home with them,” followed by seven exclamation points. I heard of a mother who must not have seen this poster and took her kids expecting a standard Vincent Price Poe film, and walked her kids out of the theater pretty quickly. Many of Price’s fans reported being horrified by this film, and one said it was the only Price film he’d seen only once. With all this hype I expected it to be a sadistic nonstop slashfest so I was (I guess) pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t a whole lot worse. Don’t get me wrong, it is still pretty awful, and would have been much moreso except for being run past censors twice. The advice on the poster is right. Probably no one under 18 has any business seeing this movie.

First of all, about the version I saw. I watched it on Pluto for two reasons: it was free and it had commercials. I thought if it was so awful I might welcome the commercials as a break. The ads were still annoying but at least gave me chances to relax briefly from all the tension. The film on Pluto is listed as The Conqueror Worm but is definitely the UK version. It has the title Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General and does not end with Vincent Price reading the Edgar Allan Poe poem. I understand some more objectionable scenes were filmed for the European market which are not in this version.

To avoid spoilers I will try to describe as much as possible what violence is done, or might otherwise be found offensive, while saying as little as possible who does what to who. It is about two men who go about England in 1645 torturing and murdering people suspected as witches. The English Civil War is also in progress. The very first scene shows an accused witch being literally dragged to the gallows screaming and struggling and is then hanged. The second deaths are war related by gunshot. After that injuries and deaths occur by stabbing with various implements, drowning, and when the persecutors tire of hanging witches they take to burning them alive. A number of very young children are present at the witch burning, and directly afterwards some older children heartlessly roast potatoes. Their fire is smaller than the witch burning fire, but it is at least implied that they took embers from the witch fire which may have contained human fat and other remains to make a potato roasting fire—cannibalism much? A young engaged couple goes to bed before being married and holds their own kind of makeshift marriage ceremony later. An innocent young woman is repeatedly raped by two different men on different occasions. The love scene and rape scenes are not overly graphic but leave no doubt as to what occurred. The witch hunts are portrayed as being directed specifically at Catholics so there is religious persecution, a priest is tortured and killed, and a church is desecrated. The grand finale is a brutal axe murder/execution. Many scenes will be triggering but I personally never covered my eyes.

Admittedly the blood in some scenes looks almost as fake as in the following (supposed) Price Poe film, The Oblong Box. Maybe it was the best available at the time. It is made quite real enough by the hideous screams and writhing in agony of the victims. It’s obvious everyone brought their A game here. Blood flows out of bare flesh in an impressive way; the viewer can’t just say the actors had ketchup packs under their clothes or anything. The amount of blood shown in this film is copious. Even Shakespeare in his darkest tragedies added some comic relief; this has none. If you want any break, watch it with commercials.

I was, as I say, surprised that the film was as watchable as it is. This is made possible by the love story between Cornet Richard Marshall played by Ian Ogilvy, a young Roundhead soldier in Cromwell’s troops—so already on the wrong side of history, but overall a very decent fellow in bad circumstances—and Sara Lowes, played by Hilary Dwyer. They are so appealing that the film is, at least sort of, not all about people being tortured any more than Titanic is just about a ship sinking. Vincent Price gives a wonderfully understated performance, the most subtle I have seen in all his films I have watched so far. Even in The Masque of the Red Death, he gave some hints of humanity under an evil façade, but not here. He stays cool and collected while most of the sadism and reveling in torture comes from Robert Russell who is a fantastically villainous John Stearne.