Witchfinder General - Dark Publications

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Product Description
Set in 17th century England during the violent early days of Cromwell's rule THECONQUEROR WORM is Michael Reeves' dark violent tale of the infamous 17th century witchhunter Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price). A failed lawyer Hopkins practiced his wicked trade throughout the British countryside for nearly a decade capitalizing on the instability and tumultuous upheavals created by the English Civil War. After years of unchallenged torture and sadistic murder the witchfinder finally meets his match when until he runs afoul of an army officer who vows revenge.System Requirements:Running Time: 86 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 027616087652 Manufacturer No: M108765

Amazon.com
By consensus, Vincent Price's finest performance among his gallery of horror-movie rogues comes in Witchfinder General, the intense 1968 film that erased any hint of camp from the actor's persona. Price plays Matthew Hopkins, a sadistic 17th-century "witchfinder" who uses barbaric methods to identify (and invariably execute) supposed witches. Along with Price's disciplined work, Witchfinder is also the best film by the talented and ill-fated director Michael Reeves, who was only 24 when he shot the movie. Blessed with a great feeling for English landscapes and an eye for blackly telling details (peasants roasting potatoes in the ashes of a burned witch), Reeves was clearly a promising filmmaker, who died in 1969 from a drug overdose. The most vivid thing about Witchfinder General is the way it explicitly links paranoia and witch-hunting to misogyny, and how female sexual energy is seen by the ruling order as a threat. The final sequence is perhaps the most harrowing fade-out of any Sixties horror picture, and offers no comforting resolution.

Included on the Witchfinder package is a disc of three featurettes: a half-hour bio, the 12-minute Art of Fear that looks at his horror work (with the expected focus on the other films in this box set), and a 15-minute piece on other actors working with Price (although these actors are not interviewed, just the gallery of experts who speak in the other docs). The Witchfinder disc includes a valuable backgrounder on the movie, including the story behind the original U.S. release of the film, titled The Conqueror Worm (to cash in on Price's connection to Edgar Allan Poe works, which this is not), plus a commentary with producer Philip Waddilove and Michael Reeves' favored leading man, Ian Ogilvy. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

My Pivotal Film Experience. September 13, 2007
45 out of 49 found this review helpful

Every lover of film has had a pivotal film experience, the movie that made such an impact on them that they have never forgotten it. For me WITCHFINDER GENERAL is that film. I first saw it in 1969 as THE CONQUERER WORM (AIP's American release title designed to cash in on the Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe series although the movie has nothing to do with Poe). I was 17 years old, just about to complete my junior year of high school in Greenville SC, and was a big fan of the Roger Corman/Vincent Price Poe series. I had seen very few films that would not qualify as G rated. The ratings system had just been introduced the year before and this film was rated M (for mature audiences, later GP then PG). It was a complete shock to the system in every way. It was the first time I had seen nudity/lovemaking before and the violence was painful and ugly. Vincent Price was cold and hard without a trace of his usual mannerisms and therefore not sympathetic in the least. To top it all off there was no happy ending and people were worse off than they were before. Of course these things had been in films since the silent era but it was the first time I had seen them and we always remember our firsts. I have seen just about everything in the movies since then but seeing WITCHFINDER nearly 40 years later I'm amazed at how well it holds up. I am happy to report that after years of substandard VHS and Region 2 DVD editions this version features the original director's cut and restores the original soundtrack which was not available in America. An added bonus is the commentary which features star Ian Ogilvy that fills in the background of the making of the film. For those who don't know, the film is set during the English Civil War and pits two young lovers against a sadistic Puritan witchfinder. The director, Michael Reeves, died shortly afterwards of an accidental prescription drug overdose at the age of 25. The 5 star rating is purely subjective because of the important part it played in my overall movie development but it's a solid 4 star film anyway.

4 out of 5 stars

A satisfying but sadly marginalised cult horror classic September 7, 2000
32 out of 34 found this review helpful

The Conqueror Worm is a textbook example of a movie's potential prospects as an acknowledged classic being wrecked by the stupidity of critics and the cynical manipulations of a distributor underestimating the intelligence of American viewers. Distributed by AIP in America as "The Conqueror Worm" and purportedly "based on the writing of Edgar Allan Poe", the film got buried by disinterested US critics who incorrectly passed it off as simply another addition to the increasingly tiresome Poe fare being churned out by AIP, Roger Corman and others. The casting of Vincent Price, of course, only strengthened this unfortunate and lazy critical impulse. For this, the distributor is as much to blame as the critics, by consciously pursuing a marketing strategy which implied precisely what critics chose to believe. And by tampering with the film itself to contrive to provide a Poe connection (by adding prologue and epilogue commentary by Vincent Price quoting from Poe's poem) AIP hung its sinking critical reputation around the neck of this great movie. In fact, The Conqueror Worm has nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe and was not even made by the AIP studio either. And when US critics began hearing European buzz about a great little horror movie called The Witchfinder General by an innovative young Brit director, Michael Reeves, how were they then to know it was the same movie they had so flippantly disregarded? By the time The Witchfinder General was rereviewed as the stand alone original it is, it was too late. The movie's moment had passed amongst the moviegoing mainstream. It is only through its devoted cult following that memory of it and its tragic young director (who died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 25) has deservedly been kept alive. Considered in the context of its time, The Conqueror Worm is a powerful, violent tale of hypocrisy and vengeance. It tells the story of the villainous opportunist Matthew Hopkins and his sidekick, the brutish moron John Stearne, who went from village to village in Cromwellian England torturing, hanging and burning "witches". The movie pulls no punches in its portrayal of the methods used by Hopkins and Stearne to extract confessions and exact punishment, but is also satisfyingly contemptuous in its portrayal of these two psychopaths. In this regard, Reeves manages something even Roger Corman couldn't do: extract a layered, complex and credible performance from the normally corny Vincent Price. This simply has to be one of his best performances ever - the one that could've given him consolidated mainstream respectability, but the one that probably the least people actually saw. Ian Ogilvy (TV's The Saint - after Roger Moore's stint)- is also very good as the tender then vengeful soldier, Richard Marshall. I am of the view that the original reason this film got trumpeted as a horror movie related to the casting of Vincent Price and AIP's cynical business calculations. However, it is indeed a horror movie, just not the kind of horror movie AIP wanted the public to believe. It falls rather - despite its gorgeous costume dress and sets - into the same category of horror sub genre which deals with studies of pure evil a la Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. (In fact, the knowing, murderous collusion - and tension - between Hopkins and Stearne resembles somewhat the relationship between the calculating Henry and moronic Otis in the later movie.) The Conqueror Worm is also, however, a revenge movie - a kind of proto-Death Wish - in that the story is driven by Richard Marshall's obsessive quest to avenge the violation and rape of his fiance by both Hopkins and Stearne. The movie looks fantastic, probably the best sense of that period ever captured on film. The shots of Marshall racing his horse through the English countryside under a foreboding evening sky are simply breathtaking. The images are strong and dark as well, contributing to a grave atmosphere of oppression in the air. The opening scenes - incorporating a lone townsman preparing a hilltop gallows against a dark sky and an old woman being dragged to her execution - are as powerful as anything you'll ever see. The wonderful thing is, the movie never lets up on this opening power. It runs its violent course without dragging and delivers a stunning visual feast of violence and evil. This movie absolutely has to find its way to DVD - and soon. And, for once, the audience frustration that builds up in the face of hypocrisy and cruelty, is satifactorily resolved. So, for those of you who are still wound up from having experienced Nicholas Hytner's brilliant version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, watch this movie to get the closure you need! Highly recommended to serious moviegoers and collectors - but also as a great midnight with popcorn movie for couples! At under $12, buy, buy, buy. Or wait for the DVD which will be stunning.

5 out of 5 stars

This is the Directors Cut September 3, 2007
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

There's more good news regarding MGM's long awaited September 11 DVD release of WITCHFINDER GENERAL (aka THE CONQUEROR WORM). Producer Philip Waddilove has confirmed to DVD Drive-In that the movie will not only be presented as Michael Reeves' director cut, but will also contain the original music score by Paul Ferris which was removed from all previous home video versions in the U.S. For this DVD, Waddilove has also just recorded an audio commentary along with star Ian Ogilvy, and an additional supplement will be a collection of Waddilove's personal stills, taken on the set. Looks like it's going to be one hell of a release!

3 out of 5 stars

On DVD at last but still not uncut August 30, 2007
13 out of 18 found this review helpful

I live in England, where there has been a (Region 2) DVD now in release for a few years that features a number of bonuses as well as two different versions of the film. One is described as being a "tamer" version for the folks in the UK, while the other version is described as the "export" version featuring scenes that were originally deemed too strong back in 1968 for the supposedly more genteel market locally speaking. Well, before you get too hopeful, the export version features some simply and crudely pasted on bits-and-pieces that for the most part were always available in the U.S. on both t.v. and VHS video. The only possible exceptions are a couple of brief bare-breasted scenes. The torture scenes were simply (and noticeably) pasted in, but were always available to U.S. viewers. The video and audio quality of these "restored" scenes are also poor. This so-called special edition here in the UK is usually a staple of most supermarket's bargain bins. Beware. I applaud MGM/UA Home video for finally bringing the film to DVD, but the running time is still around twelve minutes short of the original uncut version which purports to exist somewhere in the world today. Until or if-and-when this version ever sees the light of day, I guess we can hope for no better.

5 out of 5 stars

Not Hammer, Not Horror, a UK Masterpiece August 29, 2003
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

Why one of the reviewers here insists on calling this a Hammer movie I don't know. It certainly isn't, and never was. I saw this on its initial release in 1968, and its dark power burned a hole in my psyche. It was released on a double bill with "Blood Beast Terror", starring Peter Cushing (and also NOT a Hammer film). The production outfit was an enterprising competitor of Hammer's called Tigon Pictures. The billing with the Cushing epic (an endearing thriller about a vampire moth), tells you that this movie was unfairly promoted (and trailed) as a horror pic. While it certainly is horrific, even sitting in the Sadean tradition of UK movies like "Peeping Tom" and "Circus of Horrors", it really transcends all genres, including the historical epic, while employing tropes from many diverse genres.
I asked Ian Ogilvy for his recollections of the movie a few years ago, but he seemed - strangely - not to understand what a masterpiece he'd been involved with ... he told me, for example, that filming the scene in the church, wherein Richard pledges vengeance, he'd felt it to be both sentimental and slightly silly. Rumors and gossip abound about the filming of the movie, and you can read some interesting anecdotes from contributors on the IMDB.com pages dealing with "Witchfinder General". For instance, Vincent Price to the director Michael Reeves: "I've made over 70 movies, what have YOU done?" Reeves: "Made three good ones."
It was also interesting when some years ago I visited the village of Lavenham, where much of the movie takes place, to hear recollections of the townspeople, many of whom appeared in the movie, and all of whom adored Vincent Price as a real gentleman. A pity Price never acknowledged publicly that "Witchfinder General" featured his best movie performance. Two other points: Johnny Coquillon's photography makes this movie what it is ... that, and Paul Ferris's ORIGINAL music score with its haunting "Greensleeves"-inspired melodies, which was foolishly washed out of the US release and replaced with generic soapy schmaltz. Perhaps this is at heart a movie for Brits (particularly ex-pats like me?) who adored the English landscape and sensed something terrible emerging in the collective unconscious during the late sixties that belied the pastoral hippie dream. The original version ended with a freeze frame of Hilary Dwyer, at the moment of her greatest anguish, and darkness has won, and we are all in hell. At this point in the American-International release, Poe's "Conqueror Worm" is inserted on the soundtrack to justify packaging the movie as a Price/Poe flick, brutalizing the movie and wrecking its original dark vision. I understand a DVD is available now with original score restored - I can only hope the ending, too, is given back to Reeves's vision. Incidentally, Michael Reeves's "Sorcerers", made just before "Witchfinder", anticipated the vicarious thrills of snuff movies and the Internet by decades, and contains one of Boris Karloff's finest performances. We mourn the loss of Reeves, but in his brief career he created at least one enduring masterpiece, and it's called "Witchfinder General".

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