When a love-struck villager (Travis Worthey) visits witch Abigail
(Valerie Meachum) for a love potion, he has no idea what he's gotten
himself into, because before he knows it, the witch's place is raided by
William Thatcher Blake (David Juehring), witchfinder, and he is promptly
executed for collaborating with a witch while Abigail has an iron mask
nailed to her face before she's burned. Blake is the most successful
witchfinder of the region, and to his credit, the women he executes are
mostly actual witches ... but he is not without fail, and before dying,
Abigail actually suggested he had an affair with her - so when Blake
returns to his wife (Nicole Kilmer) and child (Chloe Konieczki), his own
sins might have given Satan a gateway to his home ... Witchfinder
is an enjoyably unforced throwback to circa 1960's period horror cinema,
full of subtle references to Hammer
horrors, Mario Bava and of course also The
Witchfinder General - but all done in a very unceremonious way, so
as to not obscure the actual story at hand with layers upon layers of
injokes for genre fans. Instead, the film goes the "old-fashioned
way" inasmuch as it chooses atmosphere over gore, a narrative over
violence, and comes across as a wonderful short piece of creepy cinema
because of that.
|