Witchfinder General

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I first saw the film, Witchfinder General, years ago as part of a Moviedrome season on BBC2, and was very pleasantly surprised by what I assumed to be just another hokey Hammer Horror. The casting of Vincent Price was an inspired one and his role as Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins was easily the finest acting of his career. The real-life Hopkins was a truly despicable character who made a great deal of money from local magistrates by torturing and murdering individuals who he accused of witchcraft. Price portrays him with a cool, brooding, taciturn malevolence, someone who is wholly indifferent to human suffering and eager to exploit Puritanism to his own ends.

This film was very controversial in the UK upon release and criticised for its violence. However, I believe that the film’s director was striving to make a commentary on the psychological effect of violence on human beings. The film certainly does not glorify violence. The torture scenes are viewed coldly and dispassionately by Hopkins and his cohorts and the townspeople gleefully mock the accused as they are dragged to their death. And the hero of the film, a soldier who swears vengeance on Hopkins after his father-in-law is tortured and murdered by Hopkins, ultimately becomes consumed by this vengeance. The closing scene is particularly striking as the soldier grabs an axe and begins to hack Hopkins to death and is only stopped when another soldier is visibly disgusted and shoots Hopkins dead. The soldier then rages uncontrollably at the man who, to his mind, has robbed him of justice, and the film ends with him screaming with anger and his fellow soldiers looking at him with pity. It is a powerful demonstration to the viewer of how violence and hatred can only beget more violence and, no matter the noble cause, how it will always destroy rather than redeem. To recall Mahatma Gandhi, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind”.

Here the complete film on Youtube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s6AmG8AufkM