★★★★★ RELEASED OUT NOW!/ 22 APRIL 1968/1971/1971 | 15/18/15 | 4K/Blu-ray/DVD Directors Michael Reeves/ Piers Haggard/James Kelly Cast Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy/ Linda Hayden, Wendy Padbury/ Beryl Reid, Flora Robson
For a short period in the late-’60s and early-’70s, producer Tony Tenser’s company Tigon supplied competition for Hammer and Amicus with a string of low-budget productions. Some of them are now being revived in a new range from 88 Films.
The earliest of the so-called “Unholy Trinity” of foundational folk horror films, Witchfinder General is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. With its period costumes and melodramatic score, at first glance it could be mistaken for a mid-period Hammer flick. Its true brutality quickly becomes apparent, however. It’s 1645 and witchfinder Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) is terrorising East Anglia. Relentless in its sexualised violence, it’s a hard film to like, but it is bracingly honest about the horror of unchecked misogyny and mob “justice”.