26 February 2012

Witchfinder General Part I







Witchfinder General was made in 1968 and in my view one of the best and certainly one of the most under rated British horror films. Rather more gruesome than the Hammer Horror output of the sixties it is loosely based on the real life activities of Matthew Hopkins, the soi disant Witchfinder Generall who  terrorised East Anglia from 1645 to 1647.

Vincent Rice was rather old to play an accurate Hopkins (who was in his twenties during his reign of terror) but he puts in a typically fine performance. Still I wonder what the film would have looked like if Donald Pleasance had played the role as originally intended.

To tie the film in with the Roger Corman output of Edgar Allen Poe films it was called the Conqueror Worm in the United States.

2 comments:

Syncopated Eyeball said...

I happened to see Corman's "The Raven" recently. So silly, but quite fun. It included a very young Jack Nicholson, but I bet you already know that. :)

jams o donnell said...

Ah now that's a film I've not seen in a good while