Witchfinder General [DVD]

ith the English Civil War raging, Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins uses the fear and confusion caused by the conflict to enact his forms of cruelty and extortion on a small rural community. He and his sadistic assistant John Stearne exploit the uneducated villagers for cash and gold, laying waste to transgressors with their reign of torture and execution. But one man, a young soldier arrives to go after the pair in a fit of bloody revenge. Simply one of the most brutal British films of the late 60s, this Tigon-produced Michael Reeves (The Sorcerers) film featuring American horror star Vincent Price and Ian Ogilvy, offers up a maliciously violent polemic about the dangers of baying mobs and propaganda-fuelled cynical opportunists.