This well-regarded historical movie stars the great Vincent Price in one of his best roles as the morally bankrupt Matthew Hopkins, a real-life "witchfinder" in mid-17th Century England. This is a tale with significant GIMP possibilities, but it largely does not deliver.

The movie begins with a lone workman banging on a scaffold on a hilly rise. A small crowd of townspeople make their way out of town and up to the scaffold, dragging a screaming and altogether unattractive woman along as a priest walks along reading from what sounds like The Book of Revelation. The woman is dragged screaming and kicking to the rise, where she faints. Water is called for a one of the townsfolk, no doubt a Good Christian Woman, just happens to have a pail full of water to splash onto the unhappy "witch," bringing her back to consciousness. She is stood on a stool, the noose is slipped around her neck, and at a nod from the priest the stool is kicked out and she dies immediately. Just in time, too, because her screams really grate. The titles begin over the image of her body swaying in the wind. Not a bad beginning.

We are introduced to our hero, Richard, who is a Parliamentarian (Roundhead) soldier, fighting against the Royalists (Cavaliers). He is engaged to Sara, the niece of a priest who, by virtue of being Catholic, is a Cavalier. The Witchfinder is also a Cavalier, but not a Catholic, and religion trumps politics in this instance as he finds the priest a worshipper of Satan. (This is a lesson modern American Republicans should take to heart when colluding with religious fundamentalists.)

Richard returns to visit Sara (Hilary Heath, nee Dwyer), gets the priest's blessing on their marriage, and takes Sara to bed (at the 15 minute mark) in a bedroom scene that shows nothing. He leaves the next day to hunt down and kill more Royalists.

The Witchfinder arrives and starts torturing the priest to make him confess. Sara comes running when she hears about it. The Witchfinder finds Sara attractive, so he suggests he question her at length in the privacy of her room that evening. Sara, who is no dummy, knows what is what and bargains for the priest's life. That evening (about 26 minutes in), the Witchfinder calls on Sara. The most she can get him to do is not hang the priest, but leave him imprisoned for the rest of his life. Or until political fortunes change, this being England in the 17th Century. She slips off her top and we see her bare back as the Witchfinder moves in for payment.

At about 32 minutes, there is a brief scene in the prison where a woman is chained to the wall and is slapped around in order to make her confess.

The Witchfinder visits Sara again, but all we get to see is his toady assistant follow him and peep through the window, where he apparently also becomes obsessed with Sara's body. The Witchfinder leaves town temporarily to falsely accuse and execute someone else in a nearby village. His toady assistant goes to Sara's house and attacks and rapes her in the field. He throws her to the ground, holds her down, and without any nudity at all, rapes her offscreen to the sounds of her screams. There is a man nearby who hears her screams and sees the attack and choosing discretion over valor, rides quietly away. This is at the 35 minute mark.

The man who watched Sara getting raped is waiting by the side of the road to report to the Witchfinder, upon his return, that his toady assistant has dipped his wick in Sara, and in the manner characteristic of judicial men in black robes, he blames Sara and orders the priest drowned and hung. The Witchfinder departs, God's work having been done once again. Richard returns and comforts Sara, they marry, and he sends her off to another town for safety. The story proceeds.

At 1 hour and 10 minutes, the Witchfinder boasts that he has come up with a new way to burn witches. His current victim, Elizabeth (Maggie Kimberley) is tied to a tall ladder and lowered slowly into a burning pyre set in front of it. The burning scene is well done, with Elizabeth screaming and struggling the entire time, until she finally catches fire and burns in a long shot. In a nice coda on the inhumanity of people in general, there is a brief bit after the burnings where the townsfolk are standing around roasting potatoes in the pyre.

By the way, this is the burning method employed later in the late 17th Century in The Bloody Judge. So now we know where the idea came from.

The final GIMP scene occurs at 1 hour and 21 minutes when the Witchfinder and his toady capture Sara and chain her to a dungeon wall. The toady repeatedly sticks a stiletto into Sara's back, looking for the secret spot that won't bleed because Satan protects specific body parts of his minions. Richard is also chained to the wall watching, and Sara is tortured to elicit his confession of witchcraft. Sara is then pulled onto a stone table and held there for more torture--a branding--except Richard escapes and hacks the Witchfinder to death with an axe. The scene ends with Sara screaming uncontrollably, presumably driven mad by what she has been through.

This movie didn't do much for me. First of all, Hilary Heath is a bit plump and I don't think she is all that attractive. None of the other women victims were all that attractive, either. The rape scenes are done well enough for a PG-Rated movie, but there is no nudity--not even in the bedroom scenes. The only notable aspect of the movie, aside from Vincent Price's excellent portrayal of a true monster, is the burning scene. It is fairly lengthy and is filmed well. On the basis of that scene, I will grade this movie a C.