Grab any newspaper, or more recently a webpage from a news site, and you’ll find stories that are far worse than any horror movie you’ve seen before. Ghosts and vampires and space aliens are certainly spooky, but the fact of the matter is that they’re fictional, i.e. not real. Our fellow human beings are real, depending on your level of solipsism, and the things that they do have a tangible effect on the world. Murder, torture, rape, bigotry, all the ills of society that we so despise we bring upon ourselves. Sometimes it is used an fuel for reform, sometimes it is ignored or even encouraged by those with their own agenda, but no matter what it seems determined to stick around.
Oh, and it makes for some great movie material.
Witchfinder General, otherwise known by the awesome but otherwise inaccurate title The Conqueror Worm, takes place during a particularly violent and hate-filled time in the world: 1645,in the midst of the English Civil War. Ol’ Albion is split roughly in half not only on political lines, Oliver Cromwell and his supporters on one side and the monarchy on the other, but on religious ones as well, with Catholics and non-Catholics squaring off against each other as well. Law and order has fallen to the wayside leaving chaos and misery in its wake, and from that chaos comes a popular new form of paranoia and prejudice. The villages of East Anglia are apparently infested with witches and witchcraft, driving its people to ruin with their satanic practices, and it is up to the Witchfinders, those paragons of divine virtue to root them out and take care of them. Through torture and executions, of course.
Yeah, there’s a story here, an army captain wanting revenge against a corrupt witchfinder, but presumably that’s not what movie audiences were into in the late 60s. They want the violence, and Michael Reeves piles it on like a fat man putting cream cheese on a bagel. Frequent, brutal torture scenes, agonizing drawn-out hangings, even a rape thrown in there for good measure, and you start to see where the term ‘video nasty’ got its start. Hell, if they didn’t use really obvious red paint for blood you might be forgiven for mistaking this as some kind of weird prequel to the Saw franchise. Both films play to the ‘brutality of man’ idea while ironically desensitizing you to violence by smothering you with violence, both feel overly pretentious (although WG at least masks it in a period piece), and both just kind of suck. They’re basically cousins!
I originally picked this film for the Marathon because it featured Vincent Price (here playing the devious Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins), and I wanted to make sure I didn’t skimp out on the horror legends. While it is good to see Price getting work, I don’t think he changes expression even once throughout this entire damn movie. He’s menacing sure, Vincent Price can do that in his sleep, but it's such a bland, unremarkable form of menacing. Compare it to his work in Masque of the Red Death or The Abominable Dr. Phibes and you wonder if Vincent had swallowed a couple Valium before each take. Hopkins doesn’t have to be super melodramatic and theatrical to be a good villain, but at least make it so I’m just sitting around waiting for him to be killed off. I should be relieved that good has triumphed over evil, not that I can finally get on with the rest of my life.
Witchfinder General, aka The Conqueror Worm is a mentally exhausting, ultimately miserable experience. What could have been a poignant warning on the dangers of mob mentality and bigotry is pushed aside for 70 or minutes of torture porn, which is uncomfortable to watch and that ends up feeling frustratingly pointless and nihilistic for the sake of nihilism. Unless you’re really into that torture porn stuff I’d say don’t waste your time, and even then there are probably more recent and more gory films to satiate your appetite. Or you’re throwing a Renaissance fair themed Halloween party/movie marathon and you’re desperate for material, but that sounds really dumb. Don’t do that dumb thing please.
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