The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (17) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (2) | DVD (5)
It remains contemporary, and even frightening, in its evocation of cynical Puritanism and mass deception.
Vincent Price has a good time as a materialistic witch-hunter and woman-disfigurer and dismemberer, and the audience at the dark, ornate New Amsterdam seemed to have a good time as well.
Visually, the theme is beautifully supported by Reeves' subtle use of colour, in which the delicate patchwork greens of the English countryside are shot through by the colours of death and decay as Matthew Hopkins prowls through it robed in black.
A legitimately beastly vision
Price is superb as real-life witchhunter Matthew Hopkins, and writer-director Michael Reeves pulls no punches with this absorbing material.
A film about the terrifying combination of sadism and power.
With no supernatural elements to speak of, it is as much an historical drama as a horror film.
This is not the kind of horror that comes from cobwebs and creaky doors. Its horrors are all too human and impossible to cast off with a simple fade out.
It's an interesting indictment of blind piousness, but it's not much of a scare film for Halloween time.
Certainly not for the squeamish, but for others it's a surprisingly well realized study of violence.
A harrowing horror film directed with real skill
Bizarrely overrated Price thriller with some good moments.
Vincent Price embodies with perfection the horrors of religious bigotry (a subject that is still not outdated), but the strength and brutality of the story get a bit diluted by its lack of a clearer direction and people who keep running around back and forth searching for each other.
Super Reviewer
In spite of Mr. Price's noteworthy performance, Witchfinder General is at best a second-rate production. The story is conceptually dark, the script is graphically brutal and the characters are painfully one-dimensional.
When it comes to the MGM Midnite Movies, I've yet to find a bad one, that is until I watched this film, maybe that's why its sold as a single rather then a double as most MGM movies are Double Features. Anyway I don't think Vincent Price enjoyed making the film as it just didn't have that Vincent Price Flair to it. Movie is about a self appointed man who with the help of others goes town to town to burn witches, and gets paid a pretty good price for doing it. But in one town he picked the wrong girl to mess with as her husband is out for revenge, Sure this billed as the second feature at a drive in during its big screen showing. Just lacked that Vincent Price feeling. 2 Stars
I have a copy of Witchfinder General from many years ago. Recently, whilst re-organising my collection, I happened upon it and watched it once more. This film still manages to induce general feelings of horror on account of its violence, even though it is not really a 'horror' film as such. Watch it for its superb cinematography which lends it an appearance of freshness that belies its 35 years. It still looks as if it could have been made yesterday. Some of the more violent scenes will make you squirm. The cruelty of the period portrayed can only be imagined and the cheapness of life comes across as truly shocking. Vincent Price is excellent as Hopkins (though maybe a bit 'mature' to portray him, since he was witchfinding in his late twenties and died in his early thirties). To think that this evil man really existed and operated unchecked for several years leaves one cold. A minor masterpiece that all lovers of the macabre should enjoy.
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