It took me 35 years to track down a good print of this film. I saw it on the Friday night horror show when I was about 10 years old in the 70's and many of the scenes were so shocking that I was just about traumatized for life. After all this time, the movie still possesses the power to hold the viewer in a state of uncomfortable, almost nauseous horror.
The horror is not just over individual instances of cruelty and bloodshed, but of the endless injustice and lust for violence that seems bred into the human race. This, I feel, is how young director Michael Reeves really saw the world...this is the despair that he felt, given life on the screen. Is it any wonder he overdosed on sleeping pills shortly after the movie's release?
His death was certainly a tragedy, because "Conqueror Worm" is the work of a master director, whose control of image, dialog and nuance were clearly visible and just starting to come into bloom. Despite the total bleakness of the movie, there is still a beauty to it...the English countryside has rarely looked more appealing. In the midst of this pastoral vista unfolds a tale of hellish corruption and utter madness.
The film grips you from the opening scene of a witch being hung. It is portrayed with no sentiment, no sign of Hollywood fiction...it is a scene of utter brutality. The screams of the condemned witch are chilling and perhaps it can be said that no movie revolves around the agonized screams and groans of people in torment more than "The Conqueror Worm". This stark, almost cinema verite portrayal of physical violence and evil gives the movie unbelievable power and force. When John Stearne(Robert Russell, terrific as a completely barbaric thug) thrusts needles into the backs of his victims, the camera neither shrinks back or zooms in on the wounds. When Stearne himself digs a musket ball from his arm with a knife, his own scream is one of the movie's most chilling.
As Matthew Hopkins, Vincent Price is brilliantly cast. His sinister intellect and commanding presence shine through in every scene. Price knew when he could "camp up" a role...here he wisely decides to deliver a cold, measured performance. Hopkins is a reptile, a two-legged snake. He's one of those vile opportunists who takes advantage of ignorance and moral chaos to satisfy his own desires. His kind has plagued mankind since the beginning...and will continue to do so until the end of time.
Where does the real horror come from in "The Conqueror Worm"? I believe it comes from the way that the best and most decent characters are destroyed by the evil roaming Reformation England. The kind Catholic priest John Lowes, the one true Christian character of the movie who detests violence and war, is tortured, humiliated and hung by the neck. The handsome and proud soldier Richard Marshall (very well played by Ian Ogilvy)is reduced to a raging maniac by the unchecked malevolence of everything he has seen. The final scene of the film is his wife Sarah's scream of complete despair. She screams not because of her own torture or the bloody carnage around her, but because she knows Richard is now a ruined man totally unlike the one she fell in love with. That is the real triumph of evil, even though Hopkins and Stearne lie dying on the dungeon floor.
Is there any decency at all in the world of "The Conqueror Worm"? Not much, but Marshall's soldier friend Robert shows that he has not lost compassion. As Hopkins lies hacked to pieces and writhing on the floor, Robert deliver mercy to the Witchfinder by putting him out of his misery. Which only leads to more horror, as the crazed Marshall yells "You took him from me!"
Don't look for humor, hope or relief here. This is the darkest of films, transcending the horror genre and yet encapsulating everything that makes it compelling at the same time. This is one of the strongest films that you will ever see.
4 out of 4 found this helpful