WITCHFINDER GENERAL: Price as Matthew Hopkins, one of his most chilling performances, presiding over the agonies of falsely accused women, his gloved hands phallically entwined.
Where the two options differ is in a respective focus on entertainment and scholarship. Exclusive to Scream Factory’s disc are the Iowa PBS wrap- arounds; the documentary featurette “WITCHFINDER GENERAL: Horror Classic” (25m 2s); a generous audio interview with Vincent Price (62m 11s); an on-camera interview with Victoria Price (47m 17s); “Introductory Price: Undertaking THE VINCENT PRICE GOTHIC HORRORS” (13m 6s), the CON- QUEROR WORM trailer (2m 6s), and a stills and poster gallery.
The Odeon disc (which is region free) is a must for anyone interested in the work of the film’s ill- fated writer-director Michael Reeves, who died not long after the film’s completion at the age of 25. There is an essential audio commentary by Reeves biographer Benjamin Halligan and Michael Armstrong, a friend of Reeves who subsequently directed the German-made WITCHFINDER knock- off MARK OF THE DEVIL; alternate nude scenes from a European export version (5m 8s); “The Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves” (23m 50s), a documentary featurette; Reeves’ first attempt at di- rection, the home movie INTRUSION (10m 25s), which has a second audio track commentary by Halligan; a WITCHFINDER GENERAL trailer (2m 29s); an ASPEL AND COMPANY television interview with Vincent Price (10m 8s) and “Blood Crimes— Witchcraft” (23m 39s), a featurette about witch- hunting in the film’s accurately depicted timeframe.
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THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES 1971, Scream Factory, 94m 38s Arrow Video, 94m 39s
DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN 1972, Scream Factory, 89m 29s Arrow Video, 89m 28s
While Arrow Video’s SIX GOTHIC TALES offers an acceptable alternative parenthesis for its not-
quite-complete set of Poe films, their COMPLETE DR. PHIBES box is winningly whole and self-con- tained. This elegant set naturally pairs Robert Fuest’s highly decorative period melodramas THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES and DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN, which star Vincent Price in one of his most beloved roles, as the somehow undead, half-machine, all-romantic anti-villain Dr. Anton Phibes—vaudeville organist, grudge-carrier par ex-
cellence, devoted husband to the late Victoria Regina Phibes (Caroline Munro in a silent performance, uncredited due to her standing contract with Hammer Films).
We have covered both movies at length in past issues, but suffice to say that THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES—in which Phibes executes a series of clever murders inspired by the plagues of the Old Testament against the team of surgeons he holds responsible for his wife’s death—is a blackly comic triumph of wit and design, in which one can see the
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