Courtesy of AIP Studios' Witchfinder General (1968), everyone knows of the exploits of British witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins (as portrayed by Vincent Price) and his fictionalized counterparts in Count Christian von Meruh and Lord Cumberland (as portrayed by Udo Keir and Herbert Lom) in Mark of the Devil (1970) and Mark of the Devil II (1973). And now you'll learn of the even bloodier exploits of Witchfinder Inquisitor Boblig von Edelstat.
Born in Austria-Hungary, Czech Republic filmmaker Otakar Vavra's lone foray into the horror genre is this historical-drama concerned with the brutal inquisition of witches during the medieval era-a film that won several awards at Argentina's Mar del Plata International Film Festival in 1970. One of those wins was for cinematographer Josef Illik who, after watching Witchhammer: you'll wonder why Illik's name is not as revered in international film circles as Hungarian-American cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
Based on a best-selling Czech history novel (1963) by Vaclav Kaplicky, the 17th century tale chronicles the real-life, human rights atrocities of the North Moravia Witch Trails of the 1670s by Witchfinder Inquisitor Boblig von Edelstat in which 100 people were murdered. The book's main protagonist, Priest Josef Lautner, is a cleric who tries to help his people, but soon falls victim to the trails for opposing "God's Law." The book is heralded as an important to literary lesson of man's ills in political-based paranoia and political prosecution on-level with Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1953) (required high school reading for many years).
The resulting film adapted by Vavra was banned, ironically, not for its graphic nature, but for Vavra adapting the film as an acidic allegory to the Communist show trails that rocked Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. While the film was banned from showing by the Czechoslovakian government, it was accepted by the international marketplace as a cinematic masterpiece.
I won't sugarcoat: Witchhammer, as was Pier Pasolini's Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), isn't pleasant (Pasolini's film even more so), but it is an exquisite example of perfection in cinema.
Watch this movie. Then watch it again.
You can find my more expansive review -- as I get into Vavra's resume -- under "Critic Reviews" for B&S About Movies.
