Set in England in the mid-1600s, during the era of Cromwell (Patrick Wymark), Vincent Price stars as the real-life Matthew Hopkins, a brutal and ruthless roaming witch-hunter and supposed Puritan. The film centres on his encounters with supposed heretic priest Rupert Davies and Davies’ niece Hilary Dwyer. Hopkins wants to hang Davies for his ‘crimes’, but Dwyer offers herself to Hopkins instead if he’ll spare her uncle’s life. Ian Ogilvy plays Dwyer’s lover, who is away serving Cromwell on the battlefield while all of this is going on. When he returns to see what has happened, he swears vengeance against Hopkins.
Perhaps not a horror film so much as a grim, nasty period piece, this 1968 film from short-lived director/co-writer Michael Reeves (whose only other films were ‘The She-Beast’ and ‘The Sorcerers’) is pretty strong stuff. Reeve’s final effort, it’s not exactly a fun film, but it’s bloody well-shot, startlingly harsh, and effectively nasty. I wouldn’t say it’s an overly gory film in the modern horror movie sense, but for 1968 it’s startlingly harsh and brutal. These were dark, nasty times the story here is covering and I bet audiences at the time were quite startled by it. The film interestingly portrays these supposed religious crusaders as mostly sleazy, sadistic hypocrites who are more interested in profit and violence than anything else. It’s also the most Hammer-esque non-Hammer film next to ‘Sleepy Hollow’. In fact, I’d argue that Hammer’s ‘Twins of Evil’ owes a lot to this film.
Some cite the film as containing Vincent Price’s best-ever performance. Personally, I prefer his work in ‘The Tomb of Ligeia’ and ‘House of Wax’, but there’s no doubt that this isn’t quite the campy Vincent Price you’re probably used to. It’s not a subtle performance (and Price makes no effort to put on an English accent), but it’s certainly a grim-faced and humourless turn with a bit more restraint than you might expect. Along with the film’s final moments, it’s Price you’ll remember most here. He, and the film, are grim to the very end. The underrated Rupert Davies doesn’t get to do a whole helluva lot, but he sure does have a lot done TO him, and is a real trouper. Patrick Wymark only gets a cameo, but he certainly makes a good impression as the not terribly handsome Cromwell. Merely OK is the film’s romantic lead Ian Ogilvy.
The film’s best assets are the excellent cinematography by John Coquillon (‘Scream and Scream Again’, ‘Straw Dogs’, ‘The Changeling’) and top-notch music score by Paul Ferris (‘The Creeping Flesh’, ‘The Sorcerers’). If the film has any flaws, pacing is an issue. Price only enters the film after 17 minutes, which is too long for such a short film.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Given critics tend to like this, I’d say it’s more under-seen than underrated. A nasty, unrelentingly grim period piece with Vincent Price matching the film’s tone with a non-campy performance. It’s not perfectly paced, but it’s certainly memorable. Beware the American cut titled ‘The Conquerer Worm’, which shamelessly tries to tie the film into the markedly different Price-Corman-Poe flicks.
