Witchhammer (1970)

In the rich vein of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General, Ken Russel's The Devils, and Robert Egger's The Vvitch comes yet another story of paranoia and religious hysteria laying waste to an insular rural village: Otakar Vávra's Witchhammer, a Czech take on the subject. This one has it all: folklore about women wiping their backsides with communion wafers and kissing the devil's literal ass right alongside social commentary and the blackest comedy. It all adds up to a scathing indictment of human nature and one of the most disturbing horror films of the seventies.

You know the drill. When an old woman spits a communion wafer into a napkin and it's discovered, suspicions of witchcraft begin to spread like the plague throughout a tiny village in Czechoslovakia. It is only when they bring 'inquisitor' Boblig von Edelstadt into the picture that things spin completely out of control and turn violent. Edelstadt is a fascinating character, a man living in squalor that either accidentally gets mistaken for a famous inquisitor or was previously disgraced for disreputable actions. In any case, the crown needs an inquisitor, and fast, and so he is hastily propped up, showered and dressed, and put in charge of the inquisition. Over time, he becomes quite terrifying to behold: a crusader who can barely even summon the energy to pretend that he doesn't act simply out of the basest desires. He covets what others have, he lusts after young maidens, he's gluttonous, he's a murderer, and he's violently insecure. Perhaps worst of all is his paranoid streak: he believes others make fun of him behind his back and consider themselves his superior, and so exerts his will viscously and without consideration.

His rival is a pious man of the cloth, Dean Lautner, who teams up with a friend and former inquisitor who was released from service for 'letting four witches go scot-free' to form a trio dedicated to stopping the trials before the entire village gets wiped out, but this is based on true events so what do you think will probably happen? The true horror of the film is the political subtext lying underneath it all, not unlike the aforementioned The Devils, where ditzy royalty pay only lip service to the idea of religion, allowing crusaders like Edelstadt to roam the country, torturing and killing their constituents while they sit in ivory towers distracted by war games. The film is often believed to be an allegory, somewhat the opposite of The Crucible, that concerns the horrors of living under a communist government in post-invasion Czechoslovakia, as opposed to the fear of communism itself. I don't really care for that interpretation especially. The film is chiefly about people, no matter the office they hold, twisting notions of sin, justice, punishment, fantasy and forbidden desire to suit their own needs. The film opens with a man asserting that "the womb of woman is the gateway to Hell" but yet the film only ever shows men abusing and taking advantage of women. A few women give in to love and cavort with men but only men whom they love and care for. No, the lustful beasts are those on the inquisition and within the church. They desire to disown the blame of their sinful thoughts and deeds, and so they look for a culprit that will absolve them: women. If they stole something from you, it would be your fault for having something so wonderful as to attract the eyes of others. The whole story has a depth and comes off as intelligently conceived and told throughout. Its themes are fascinating and its simple story is brought to life and given teeth thanks to its richly-drawn characters, both the ones we empathize with and those we fear.

The film has an interesting feature in that it makes use of quite a lot of the real locations these events supposedly took place at, specifically Edelstadt's beautiful, ornate chateau. The costuming looks great as well, and all of this is rendered in stark, black-and-white. The delicious period-appropriate string music combines with the steady pacing, tight editing and satirical elements to create a quintessential seventies film; something that, like all the best films from the era, still holds up and survives on raw storytelling chops and the horror of the human condition. This hardly even counts as religious horror, as religion is simply an excuse to these evil men, unless you subscribe to the theory that Edelstadt was no less than the devil himself. While I regret not being able to watch Witchfinder General before having to evaluate this one, I know what I like, and I really like this movie. It's witty and insightful without sacrificing its rather effective brand of human horror, and it is relatively fast-paced and gripping without sacrificing its trewmndous depth.