the discovery of witches by matthew hopkins

He's an irredeemable villain, and when he (spoiler!) finally gets what's coming to him, our audience broke into spontaneous applause. He dubs himself Witchfinder General and struts in velvet finery through villages peopled by the suffering and downtrodden. Hopkins uses his power to extort sex from beautiful young women, to imprison and torture clergymen he views as career impediments, to cast dangerous aspersions on any person who dares question his authority. Whether Reeves' provocations helped guide Price or he was better suited to the role than Reeves could admit, the result is a powerful performance, one that Price, himself, called the finest of his career. Reeves evidently didn't want Price in the role, preferring Donald Pleasence as Hopkins and taking his resentment out on Price in creative ways throughout the shoot.

Suspiria is one of my favorite films, and it looked and sounded extraordinary on the big screen, but Saturday was my first opportunity to see Witchfinder General, in which Vincent Price plays a cruel and immoral 17th century witch-hunter named Matthew Hopkins.

Robert Eggers' mystifying, merciless The Witch is in theaters this Friday, and on Saturday we celebrated at the Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park with a black magic double feature including Dario Argento's Suspiria and Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General.

The discovery of witches by matthew hopkins