Witchfinder General

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 1968, 87 min
Section: Midnight Screenings

Synopsis

Witch hunter Matthew Hopkins tours Civil War England, employing cruel torture to extract ‘confessions’ from his victims. When he rapes a young woman, her lover, a soldier, seeks revenge. Later acclaimed as the best film of Reeves’ sadly brief career, the explicit depiction of depravity and torture in Witchfinder General disgusted many critics upon first release. A realist in the mould of his idol, Don Siegel, Reeves was fascinated by the corrupting power of violence. His film is superb visceral exploitation cinema, but it manages also to dryly draw attention to societal acceptance, and normalisation, of state-condoned brutality. Veteran thespian Price and young hotshot director Reeves had a frosty relationship. But Reeves somehow coaxed a chillingly low-key performance from his star, entirely at odds with his usual flamboyance, but just right for the sombre mood of the film. Beautifully shot in unspoilt Suffolk countryside, the peaceful backdrop makes the grim horror of the narrative all the more shocking.

About the director

Michael Reeves (b. 1944, London; d. 1969), a keen cineaste from an early age, was educated at King’s Mead, an ivy-clad English public school, where he wrote film reviews for the school magazine. He worked in a minor capacity for Don Siegel, after flying to the US and turning up unannounced on the director’s doorstep; and made tea on the set of Jack Cardiff’s The Long Ships (1963). In Italy, producer Paul Maslansky hired him as 2nd assistant director on the horror film Il castello dei morti vivi (1964); with Maslansky’s help, Reeves financed, co-wrote and directed The She Beast (1965) (featuring scenes later reworked in Witchfinder  General). Back in England, he directed The Sorcerers (1967) and Witchfinder General for Tigon. Reeves’ career was tragically cut short when he died of an accidental barbiturate overdose in 1969.