It's impossible to comment on Michael Reeves movie WITCHFINDER GENERAL without mentioning the outright condemnation it received from critics on its initial release , or rather the condemnation of the " sickening and cruel violence " . Watching it today I'm slightly puzzled as to what peoples problems were at the time but then I thought about it . In 1968 no one had seen the gory video nasties from the 1980s and Vincent Price was best known for starring in rather camp horror B movies , so I guess you'd have to live in the context of 1968 to understand the controversy
There's another thing and that is it's always billed as a "horror film" when broadcast on television but was WITCHFINDER GENERAL originally marketed as a horror film in 1968 ? Stylewise it is similar to a Hammer horror - The cast are composed of familiar television faces , there's day for night filming , the budget is rather similar to a Hammer movie at the time etc but is it meant to be a bio pic ? was it originally intended as a historical drama ? Unfortunately this where the movie fails because there's not much in the way of historical truth , Matthew Hopkins did indeed exist , he wasn't a mythical figure he was a cynical murdering mercenary who condemned people as witches in order to make a load of money but he didn't meet his fate as shown here . It's believed he emigrated to America when the resentment in England got too much for him and carried on torturing suspects
There are a couple of good aspects to the movie . First of all Vincent Price gives what is regarded as his best performance and it is fairly impressive though he could have played the role in an even more cynical manner and parts of the script do pick up on the ridiculous trials of the time such as if a suspect is thrown into a river and drowns they're not a witch ! But even if you watch the restored version ( That's the version where the picture quality drops during violent scenes ) you still find yourself asking why it was so controversial in 1968
There's another thing and that is it's always billed as a "horror film" when broadcast on television but was WITCHFINDER GENERAL originally marketed as a horror film in 1968 ? Stylewise it is similar to a Hammer horror - The cast are composed of familiar television faces , there's day for night filming , the budget is rather similar to a Hammer movie at the time etc but is it meant to be a bio pic ? was it originally intended as a historical drama ? Unfortunately this where the movie fails because there's not much in the way of historical truth , Matthew Hopkins did indeed exist , he wasn't a mythical figure he was a cynical murdering mercenary who condemned people as witches in order to make a load of money but he didn't meet his fate as shown here . It's believed he emigrated to America when the resentment in England got too much for him and carried on torturing suspects
There are a couple of good aspects to the movie . First of all Vincent Price gives what is regarded as his best performance and it is fairly impressive though he could have played the role in an even more cynical manner and parts of the script do pick up on the ridiculous trials of the time such as if a suspect is thrown into a river and drowns they're not a witch ! But even if you watch the restored version ( That's the version where the picture quality drops during violent scenes ) you still find yourself asking why it was so controversial in 1968