This early 70s AIP horror flick, part of their second Poe cycle, has gotten a bad wrap from the fans and even the people who worked on it. I didn't mind it so much though I wish it had been less of a rip off of Witchfinder General, with Vincent Price once again in period clothes tormenting the peasants and accusing them of being witches, and Hilary Dwyer on hand screaming and screaming and screaming.
The actual story isn't bad - Price is a rich lord who is mean to everyone and delights in trying to stomp out witches (more for his own pleasure than legal reasons); he runs into trouble when he tracks down a real life coven of witches, led by Elisabeth Bergner, star of the 30s stage and screen, and they take out a curse on him and his family.
There are lots of subplots going on here, so there's plenty of light and shade and characters with some complexity - Price's daughter Dwyer is in love with a nice servant and gets rogered by him fairly often (Dwyer was good as these English roses with a taste for naughtiness), only for the servant to get possessed; his son has a nasty side; his wife is tormented and spaced out; his step son is sadistic. There's also a drunken gravedigger, the head witch, and a nice priest.
At times it was a bit confusing as to what was going on in part because I wasn't that familiar with many of the supporting actors and had trouble keeping track of who was who. Also it's really nihilistic - the witches are kind of nice but turn to violence very quickly, the nice son has little trouble killing, the nice daughter is killed, the nice servant is possessed and turns into a murderer. Of course there are rape/molestation sequences, which early 70s cinema seemed unable to do without. Also there are places where it's down right laughable - the witches rituals, Dwyer's screaming, and, if I'm honest, Terry Gilliam's opening credit sequence.
But at least its ambitious and was no way near as bad as I thought it would be.
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