Witchfinder General
Witchfinder General is a 1968 film from the UK, directed by Michael Reeves, running 87 minutes. reelscum files it under folk horror.
- Year
- 1968 · 1960s films
- Country
- UK
- Runtime
- 87 min
- Director
- Michael Reeves
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (28/100)
- Also known as
- Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General · Matthew Hopkins: Conqueror Worm · The Conqueror Worm · Edgar Allan Poe's The Conqueror Worm
Defined in the glossary: Folk horror
Vincent Price with the camp removed. Reeves died at 25, a year later.
Vincent Price gives his best and least camp performance as Matthew Hopkins, a real man who profited from torturing accused witches during the English Civil War. There is nothing supernatural in it. The horror is entirely that the law permits this and a certain kind of man will always volunteer.
Michael Reeves directed it at 23 and died the next year, which makes the bleakness feel like a testament. The English countryside has rarely looked so beautiful or meant so little to the people being destroyed in it.
Grim, serious and one of British horror's peaks.
Trailer
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Where to watch
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