Witchfinder General (1968)

In 1645, with England torn apart by civil war, the infamous witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) – an Ipswich lawyer who turned his back on the practice of law for the more lucrative practice of witchfinding (the prevailing rate for the successful conviction of a witch was three guineas) – roamed the country torturing and executing those suspected of witchcraft.

Beginning with a bone-chilling hanging scene amid the otherwise idyllic East Anglian landscape, Witchfinder General charts Hopkins’s brutal reign of terror through the villages of rural eastern England, creating a harrowing allegory on how pervasive superstition and distrust can provide fertile ground for the power-hungry.

Hopkins is a roving, predatory opportunist who travels from town to town with his thug-lackey John Stearne (Robert Russell), charging local magistrates to rid their parishes of witches.

If prospective victims have attractive wives or daughters, the vile Hopkins avails himself of the opportunity to bed them with false promises of leniency. Cold and relentless, the hypocrite Hopkins victimises old women and is quick to arrest those who dare denounce him.

Price plays it straight for once as the cynical religious maniac instigating torture and degradation for pleasure and profit in an intense study of pathological cruelty.

To obtain confessions, Stearne uses a spike to “probe for the devil’s spot.” Catch-22 word games ensure that both a confession and a refusal to confess are interpreted as guilt.

The screaming victims are at first dispatched by drowning and hanging until Hopkins tries out the new continental method of burning on a pyre.

Brooding over these unhappy events is the shadow of Lord Protector Cromwell (Patrick Wymark), whose puritanical beliefs provide an added impetus to witch-hunting and new charges to bring against the unfortunate accused.

Into this menace-charged atmosphere rides Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy). He is a young Roundhead soldier who takes the opportunity of a few days’ leave to visit his sweetheart Sara (Hilary Dwyer).

Sara is the niece of a kindly old village priest who has himself come under the frowning eyes of the Puritans for his mild High Church leanings. Richard asks for the hand of Sara in marriage and, with the priest’s consent and blessing, rides off happily to rejoin his regiment.

But hatred and suspicion have been building up against the priest, and the dreaded Hopkins is secretly sent for by the hate-obsessed villagers.

Sara’s happiness at her betrothal is short-lived, for the arrival of Hopkins sees her uncle seized, tortured and thrown into a cell to await execution.

Sara knows the rules of this brutal era, and she knows the price she will be called upon to pay if the old priest’s life is to be spared. Temporarily stifling her affection for Richard, she offers herself to the loathsome Hopkins . . .

Condemned on first release as extremely bloody and sadistic, this penetrating chronicle of the social evils at large during the English Civil War from director Michael Reeves is now an acknowledged horror classic and has a sense of time and location few British films have captured since.

The most brutal scene in the film is when Matthew Hopkins tries out a new form of execution. A fire is lit, and the alleged witch (Maggie Kimberley) is tied to the top of a ladder, which is slowly lowered toward the fire until she herself catches fire.

There is no historical record of this type of witch burning. It was Michael Reeves’s idea, as he wanted a particularly nasty scene to depict the horrors of witch hunts.

During filming, the ladder was lowered to a 45-degree angle. Maggie Kimberley was tied to the ladder, protected from the heat with asbestos.

She was told to change the pitch of her screams when it got too hot. As the wind shifted, the fire blazed higher, and it got hotter.

Kimberley screamed differently, and the ladder was pulled up. The makeup blood had melted, leaving a few blisters and her eyebrows were singed.

The scene was longer in the original version, but the dummy on the ladder catching fire looked scary, especially when the hair started to burn and John Trevelyan of the British Board of Film Censors ordered it to be cut shorter.

The interior shots were filmed in two specially converted aircraft hangars near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, rented for £1,500. This cost-saving measure meant that much of the dialogue had to be re-recorded later, as the hangars’ tin roofs created unwanted echo.

Exterior locations ranged from the Dunwich seafront (for the fisherman’s scene) to Langley Park outside London (for the scene in which Stearne escapes capture). The tracking shot of the post-credits ambush scene was filmed in Black Park in southeast Buckinghamshire, a location frequently used by Hammer Film Productions.

The setting for the witch-burning scene was the real market square in Lavenham, Suffolk.

The crew removed television aerials and telephone lines, and producer Philip Waddilove rented a cherry picker from a local utility company for £10 as the production couldn’t afford a camera crane.

The landscape shots during the horseback chase scenes were filmed at the Stanford Battle Area near Thetford, Norfolk. The church featured in the film is St. John the Evangelist in Rushford, Norfolk. The drowning and hanging scenes were filmed at Kentwell Hall in Long Melford.

The climax of the film was shot at Orford Castle, an English Heritage site on the East Anglian coast.

Ian Ogilvy broke his leg during filming when he went flying over the table during a bar fight with Stearne. In later scenes, Ogilvy was seen more on horseback. The insurance company paid the production £10,000, which came at just the right time for Reeves,  who told Ogilvy, “Thank you very much, I can now shoot three scenes that I wouldn’t have been able to shoot otherwise.”

Only 23 when he directed this, his third film, Reeves died a few months after its release from an alcohol and drug overdose.

The film – released in some countries as The Conqueror Worm – has stood the test of time with Vincent Price and executive producer Tony Tenser also enjoying career high points here. Price considered it his best film despite frequently clashing with Reeves during filming.

Vincent Price died of lung cancer on 25 October 1993 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82. Sadly, Hilary Dwyer died on 30 March 2020, from complications relating to COVID-19. She was 74.

Matthew Hopkins
Vincent Price 
Richard Marshall
Ian Ogilvy 
John Lowes
Rupert Davies
Sara Lowes 
Hilary Dwyer
John Stearne
Robert Russell
Trooper Robert Swallow
Nicky Henson
Tom Salter
Tony Selby
Captain Gordon
Michael Beint
Trooper Harcourt 
John Treneman
Trooper Gifford
Bill Maxwell
Elizabeth
Maggie Kimberley
Girl at Inn
Margaret Nolan
Oliver Cromwell
Patrick Wymark 
Master Loach 
Wilfrid Brambell

Director
Michael Reeves

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