The real Matthew Hopkins rose to power in March of 1645 by accusing an elderly woman named Elizabeth Clarke of witchcraft. She was dunked in water until she confessed which resulted in 32 suspects being arraigned in Chelmsford Assizes. He later traveled to Suffolk with his assistant John Stearne where he accused the local pastor, John Lowes, of witchcraft. The suspect was subsequently hanged. In Bassett's novel, Hopkins eventually meets his demise at the end of a rope but in real life he died of tuberculosis in 1647 in Manningtree, Essex.

Michael Reeves was only eight years old when he began telling friends he wanted to make movies.

Writer Tom Baker recalls that he and Reeves began making movies as teenagers using an 8mm Bolex and a tea trolley for tracking shots.

Reeves first met Ian Ogilvy at the age of fifteen when they were both classmates in high school. Together they made a 20 minute film called Carrion in which Ogilvy played a psychopath terrorizing a crippled girl.

Ian Ogilvy would end up playing the lead in all three of Reeves's films - The She-Beast (1966), The Sorcerers (1967) and The Conqueror Worm.

Before he turned twenty, Reeves and his mother inherited a family trust fund that enabled him to travel to America where he sought out his idol, director Don Siegel. He found out where Siegel was living in Hollywood, went to his front door, rang the bell and introduced himself. Siegel was impressed enough to get him an entry level job at a studio, running errands and attending to minor production details.

Through family connections Reeves knew producer Irving Allen who helped get him hired on the film crew for The Long Ships (1963), a Viking adventure starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, that was filmed in Yugoslavia.

Producer Paul Maslansky met Reeves during the making of The Long Ships and was so impressed with him that he hired him as second unit director on his upcoming production, Castle of the Living Dead (1964) starring Christopher Lee.

The association with producer Paul Maslansky led to an opportunity for Reeves to direct his first feature film. Working with a low budget in Italy, Reeves directed his friend Ogilvy and Barbara Steele in The She-Beast. Steele, the only high profile name in the cast, was hired for one day's work at $1,000 but, because she was not-SAG and the crew was not union, she was bound to work 18 hours straight. She had no choice but to comply but she was so angry she didn't speak to Maslansky for years afterwards.

Exploitation producer/distributor Tony Tenser first worked with Reeves when he was presented with a deal by fledging producer Patrick Curtis (he played Baby Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, 1939) to make The Sorcerers starring Boris Karloff, Catherine Lacey and Ian Ogilvy.

The box office success of The Sorcerers convinced Tenser to co-produce The Conqueror Worm for Reeves with some financial involvement from American International Pictures who insisted on casting Vincent Price.

The film is also known as Edgar Allan Poe's Conqueror Worm.

"Michael Reeves, the director, wanted me to play it absolutely cold, without emotion of any kind," Vincent Price revealed in an interview in Video Watchdog. "We didn't get along at all, but I agreed with what he wanted. I think I understood what he wanted. I think it's one of the best performances I've ever given, and I think it is a classic picture of its kind."

All British versions of The Conqueror Worm prior to 1996 were cut by 1 min 26 seconds by the UK censor on the original release. The Redemption Video release restores this material from European laserdiscs. (from IMDB)

The UK R2 DVD features 2 versions of the film - the original UK version (labeled "The Director's Cut", with BBFC censor cuts restored via grainy, inferior quality inserts) and the Continental version (labeled "The Export Version") that has alternate takes of several tavern shots in which the various wenches are topless or have exposed breasts; in the UK version they are more conservatively dressed and there are extra scenes of torture and violence, notably additional axe blows to Price's body at the film's conclusion. (from IMDB).

Regarding the gory finale, Ivan Butler wrote in Horror in the Cinema, "The real horror of Matthew Hopkins is that he died in his bed. Had he met the end given him here one could comfortably feel that at least he had received his due."

The American version, retitled The Conqueror Worm, features opening and closing narration from Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same name.

Tigon promoted the film in England as "The Most Violent Film of the Year."

When the film was first released in England, it was denounced by most critics for its sadism though a few praised it for its historical insight. One of the film's biggest detractors was playwright Alan Bennett (on the staff of The Listener) and its two most vocal supporters were Tom Milne (writing for Monthly Film Bulletin) and Robin Wood (critic for Movie).

Although women accused of witchcraft are burned alive in The Conqueror Worm, in English history and Bassett's novel, people accused of being witches in England were hanged or drowned during "tests" of their guilt.

The USA version, titled The Conqueror Worm, as well as having the reference to the Poe poem, replaces the film's original score by Paul Ferris with a different score by Lex Baxter. UK prints under the title Witchfinder General have the correct original Ferris score.

John Coquillon, the cinematographer of The Conqueror Worm, would eventually work with Sam Peckinpah on four films including Straw Dogs (1971) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).

Robert Russell was re-voiced in the film by Bernard Kay.

Wilfrid Brambell, who has a brief cameo role in The Conqueror Worm as Master Loach, played the grandfather of Paul McCartney in the Beatles' debut film, A Hard Day's Night (1964). He specialized in eccentric character parts in British movies such as Crooks in Cloisters (1964) and also appeared in two Disney features, In Search of the Castaways (1962) and The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964).

Nicky Henson, who plays Trooper Swallow in the film, appeared in numerous British films including the Peter Sellers-Goldie Hawn comedy, There's a Girl in My Soup (1970), Vampira (1974) and The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976). His most memorable part, however, may be the motorcycle gang leader who returns from the dead in the offbeat black comedy, Psychomania (1971).

Patrick Wymark, who has a brief scene as Cromwell in The Conqueror Worm, also appeared in another period thriller that enjoys a cult following, The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), a tale of a teenage devil coven that preys on an isolated rural village.

Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger, the owners of Tigon, the distributor for The Conqueror Worm, Reeves's earlier The Sorcerers and other exploitation films, were responsible for financing Roman Polanski's first two English-language films, Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-Sac (1966).

Following the release of The Conqueror Worm, Reeves tried to launch several new projects but each one fell through, leaving him depressed and withdrawn. He began drinking heavily and taking drugs which apparently was the cause of his sudden death at the age of 24; it has never been proven whether it was suicide or an accidental death.

Compiled by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
NYT Review
Cult Movies by Danny Peary
Cult Movies by Karl & Philip French
Vincent Price Unmasked by James Robert Parish & Steven Whitney
Vincent Price: The Art of Fear by Denis Meikle
The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography by Victoria Price
The Horror People by John Brosnan
Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Interviews With 20 Genre Giants by Tom Weaver
Video Watchdog
IMDB