ed to dig out the movie from my collection and watch it again. It's been a few years since I've seen this cult classic.It still holds up as an excellent, though disturbing film - critics have accused the film of being sadistic and it is in places, but if you're making a film based on true events such as these then it is the duty of all those involved to make Mathew Hopkins the bastard he truly must have been. The torture scenes are extremely graphic but only in terms of realism - you don't see much blood and gore, it's not that kind of movie.
Director Michael Reeves realised early on in production that he was making a British western and the film is paced as such - exciting, suspenseful and packed with real history. It's an excellent film but if you can manage to get hold of the BBC play based on the making of this film, it will vastly improve your appreciation of this British masterpiece.
Note the current DVD issue labels the film as Edgar Allen Poe's ....but it's got nothing to do with Poe. The director made an exciting historical epic, even if it has always been marketed as a horror movie, in the vein of the Roger Corman Poe classics.
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