Cry of the Banshee (1970)

hyped garbage

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Blistering performances.

We're back in familiar WITCHFINDER GENERAL territory as Vincent Price sends all manner of innocent young girls to be burned and tortured in this enjoyable period potboiler. However, CRY OF THE BANSHEE lacks the power of its obvious influence and is content to go through the motions instead. There is nothing wrong with this, and it remains a thoroughly entertaining movie which seems exactly like a Hammer film in all but name.The atmospheric forest scenery certainly adds to the lavish look of the film as do the costumes. Despite the low budget these all look authentic. What is surprising is the amount of gratuitous nudity in this film - a lot more than was offered in other films of the time. Almost every female in this film has her top torn off at one time or another, perhaps making this more enjoyable for the male viewers. The violence level is pretty graphic, too, although the disappointing gore only consists of some cheap-looking blood smeared over a few necks and faces. Also, the chief villain in this film is a werewolf, and when we finally get to see it, it looks really disappointing, just a bloke with brown makeup on his face.The cast is pretty good for a film of this sort, with Price relishing a role which he could play in his sleep by now - although he keeps the hamming to a bare minimum here. His male supporting cast are mainly macho, handsome actors of the period - such as Patrick Mower - and fail to make much impact, leaving Price to hog much of the limelight for himself. It's only Hugh Griffiths in a fun role as a gravedigger who stands out from the mostly similar-looking crowd. Loads of pretty actresses also populate the cat, including WITCHFINDER GENERAL's Hilary Dwyer and THE OBLONG BOX's Sally Geeson.So, for Hammer fans, this is fine entertainment with plenty of intrigue and action to keep things moving quickly over the rather familiar plot. Any film which has suspicious priests and people descending into broken tombs to break up evil gatherings where the high priestess is sticking pins into a voodoo doll is good by my book, and no mistake. Not the most powerful of the witch-burning genre, but a solid enough piece of entertainment, no mistake.

One of three films Vincent Price made in England with the same director-writer team (along with "The Oblong Box" and "Scream and Scream Again"). AIP was coming to the end of a long string of horror films loosely adapted from Edgar Allen Poe -- as well as several co-productions with Hammer and Tigon. In one of those, "Witchfinder General" aka "The Conqueror Worm" (Tigon-AIP, 1968), Price gave one of his best performances as a cruel, corrupt witch hunter. In "Cry of the Banshee" he plays a nearly identical role and is also quite good. The story has similar elements as well, but manages to establish its own identity. It seems obvious AIP was trying to repeat the basic formula of "Witchfinder General." However, this production lacks its thoughtful direction, atmosphere, and feeling for historical accuracy. This is just a standard horror yarn, but Price's restrained, non-hammy performance comes close to making up for deficiencies in script and direction. An interesting side note: Monty Python fans should recognize Terry Gilliam's distinctive animation style used during the opening credits. Set in Elizabethan England, Lord Charles Whitman (Price) is a wicked, slightly decadent magistrate bent on wiping out every trace of witchcraft and paganism in his district. The story opens with him charging a woman with being a heretic. She is branded on the chest, flogged through the streets (an excuse for some topless exposure), and locked in the stocks. His zeal is driven not by religious fanaticism (as in "Witchfinder General") but a need to protect his power and authority. Trouble begins during a raid on a coven of witches holding a ritual ceremony. After several cult members are killed, the leader, an old crone named Oona, puts a curse on Whitman. Later, she calls upon a demonic spirit, a banshee, to destroy him and his family. (In mythology, a banshee is a fairy woman who wails when someone is about to die, but accuracy is usually ignored in horror movies of this ilk.)Here is where things go a bit off. The titular banshee starts killing members of Whitman's family. But the creature is really more of a wolf man (barely seen in a series of dark, shadowy encounters). They might as well have called this "Cry of the Wolf Man" for all that. Adding to the strangeness is the inclusion of voodoo type magic ceremonies where dolls representing the victims are stuck with pins. Was that really necessary?To its credit, the film does not have that cheap assembly-line look often associated with AIP product. Costumes, sets, location filming, and overall production is fairly plush looking. This seems like a deliberate move to compete with the high-quality British horror films from Hammer, Tigon, and Amicus. Had Roger Corman been given the same budget he would have cranked out three quickie films back-to-back with money left over. AIP also exploited its R-rating by including frequent scenes of semi-clad tavern wenches and witches being manhandled and mistreated.The film has a fairly satisfying ending. But one wishes Price's character had been given more depth, and more of an edge. Too much attention is given to a large cast of pedestrian supporting characters -- a curious practice that has bogged down countless Hammer films.

You always know what to expect from this genre of low-budget supernatural-historical movies ... peasants with one brain between the lot of them, fine wenches being treated very, very badly, and plenty of over-acting from men wearing tights and funny hats.Cry of the Banshee has all of these elements, and is fairly representative of the genre. It isn't on the same level as cult movies like "Witchfinder General" (also starring Vincent Price), but it does have it's moments. Here Vincent Price plays a wicked lord with a very strange family. He takes great pleasure in finding, mistreating and executing young witches, until he messes with the wrong coven and his entire family is cursed. They soon begin to get gruesomely killed off one by one by a seemingly unstoppable monster. That'll teach 'em.Vincent Price gives a fairly memorable performance here as the evil, sadistic lord of the town. He does the best he can with the script, anyway, which is all a great actor can ever do. Nobody else on the cast is particularly noteworthy, but on the whole it's a fairly competent movie as far as the acting is concerned. On the subject of the script, it does seem to be thing that everyone involved struggled with. The movie had already been sold to the distributors, which meant that the director, re-writers and so on couldn't change it as much as they would probably have liked to, so they didn't necessary end up making the movie they wanted to make.This accounts for the way that some aspects of the film are so much better than others. In some scenes the actors themselves seem pretty bored with it, whereas in others the relish in the opportunity to show their full talent. The scenes involving the witches coven are pretty interesting, and some of the climatic moments are particularly well-shot. Also, the opening credits sequence is instantly recognisable as the work of Monty Python's artist Terry Gilliam, which is pretty neat. However, there aren't enough great moments to elevate it above most other movies of it's kind.If you're a fan of Vincent Price, or of those trashy period movies of the sixties and seventies, you might want to give this one a look. Otherwise, it probably won't appeal to you that much.

By no stretch of the imagination is this even close to Price's best film. In most of his films, Price can play the most evil, vile, hideous person alive, yet you can still find qualities to like because of his charismatic, sympathetic nature. This is not the case in Cry of the Banshee. Price's Lord Edward Whitman is a character without any likable qualities.I don't think the story (very similar to The Conqueror Worm) was very original for its time. There are far better "burn the witch" movies that preceded Cry of the Banshee. Price again plays a witch finder. But, he messes with the wrong witch and she places a curse on his family. One by one, family members die at the hands of the witch's Banshee.Two things I liked were the ending and the Banshee make-up. The end of the film had some mild surprises that I enjoyed. And the Banshee makeup was good, IMO, because it wasn't over-done. The minimalistic approach to the make-up worked for me.