"Witchfinder General", or "The Conqueror Worm" as it was titled in America, is a 1968 folk Horror film that stars Vincent Price. I watched this on Tubi, and the movie's genre was just plain "Horror", though in many ways, this seems like a misnomer. The film isn't scary, though it's more in the same note as movies such as "The Wicker Man", and "The Blood on Satan's Claw". Movies that touch on the ideas of witchcraft in the British sense of things. In this movie, Price plays Matthew Hopkins, "The Witchfinder General" who was a real person in real life, that tortured many under the suspicion of witchcraft.
The movie was renamed to "The Conqueror Worm" in the US, because advertisers were trying to make people think that it was another Edgar Allan Poe inspired movie. Many ads showed this, but in reality, the film had nothing to do with Poe at all. The Poe story of the same name is not the same as what is depicted in the movie.
The film was directed by Michael Reeves, who, according to the lore, did not get along with Price, nearly at all. From what you can read about the movie on iMDB, it seems that Reeves was rather arrogant and wanted things his way, defying many of the points that Price would make during filming. I guess Price got the last laugh though, as Reeves ended up dying less than a year after the film was released. In February of 1969, Reeves died from an accidental alcohol and barbiturate overdose. This seems to be the only film that he completely directed with Price, as the second one was "The Oblong Box", though he ended up having to be replaced.
Even though Price stars in the film, I feel like you don't see him as much as you'd like, considering that he has the most important role. His minions, mainly Stearne, torture people trying to get them to confess to witchcraft, but you don't see much about witches in this movie, really. The film focuses more on the characters of Sarah Lowes, John Marshall, and honestly, Stearne. Much of the movie felt like one giant chase, between Stearne going after Sarah to assault her, Stearne going after Marshall, and Marshall going after Stearne. When I describe it this way, it sounds like something from Scooby Doo.
The ending to the film was laughable, and not scary at all. Marshall goes to chop up Hopkins, but one of the other soldiers shoots him. Marshall then yells, "You took him from me! You took him from me!", but it is so silly, you can't help but laugh.
Personally, I didn't care for this film that much, and couldn't see myself watching it again. Price was great. Hilary Dwyer was great, but much of the film was not what I hoped for. It was interesting to see Price and Dwyer in what appeared to be their first film together, as they would work again for "The Oblong Box", and "Cry of The Banshee".
When I looked through the newspaper archives, I couldn't find many reviews about the film, mostly just ads for it. One article stated that Hilary Dwyer and Ian Ogilvy, the actor that played Marshall, "Deserved better". And I would have to agree. The film didn't take advantage of the talent that was in it. Price played "the bad guy", but he wasn't really as evil as seen in his other films.
Many corners of the internet today will state that the film was considered to have a considerable amount of torture in it, which I suppose is true, for a British film from this decade. To me, this movie is not as gruesome as some of other "Grindhouse" types from this era, films such as "I Drink Your Blood" come to mind.
In 1968, the movie was often billed with films such as "She-Devils On Wheels", "Psych-Out", "The Savage Seven", and "Planet of The Apes". I don't know why, maybe it was because this was the Hippie era, but a lot of biker/hippie films were played along this one.
This 1968 article is simply just a summary of the movie.
Overall, I thought this was an okay movie. I wish that there would have been more about actual witches and how horrible the false accusations were. Unless you already had some sort of education about the witch trials, some of the torture done in this movie would have seemed absolutely off the wall.
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The movie has had some influence on music. The first, and most obvious, is the band "Witchfinder General" who took their name from the movie.
Price's infamous line "I'm Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder" used in the song "Hopkins (Witchfinder General) by Cathedral, from their 1995 album "The Carnival Bizarre". The song uses samples of the movie throughout it.
I gave this movie 2 stars on letterboxd.
