Witchhammer (1970)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I've seen many movies about the persecution of witches in medieval times, but this one rightly stands on top of that pile, surpassing even peer masterpieces "Mark of the Devil" and "Witchfinder General". The cinematography is gorgeous, the writing is smart and sophisticated, the performances are excellent, and the story itself is gut-wrenching and brutal. Rarely do horror films haunt my mind like this Czech production did. With its roots based in historical fact, the true evils of mankind certainly are much more diabolical than any conjured up monster or serial killer. It is quite an experience to watch a movie that is simultaneously, strikingly, so beautiful and yet so harrowing.

Inquisition film, from Czechoslovakia. You know the drill. Innocent women are unjustly accused of witchcraft and tortured by sadistic inquisitioners into admitting they committed acts at the command of Satan. Religious persecution and sadism towards imprisoned women, particularly those that won't cooperate. Boblig, the inquisitioner, is an obvious fraud who was "retired" and since granted power by Her Grace to "rid her castle of the Devil", he more than happily inhabits his former role, not in any hurry to return to a life as a poor innkeeper. When you have the finest clothes, sleeping quarters, and food, provided courtesy of Her Majesty, one can see why a cruel fiend(and his clerk) might not wish to scurry home to an insignificant existence.Before you know it, all the village women are fair game, with the men worrying that their beloved girls will be next on his checklist. When he's not fattening himself with beef or drinking himself into a near stooper, Boblig is having women round up for trials, his clerk always scribbling edicts of his choosing("Put that down in the protocol"). Deacon Lautner, the only crusader for the people that seems to have any courage, appeals to the "His Emminence" for support, but Boblig, for whatever reason, had curried favor with Her Majesty(and, in particular, "the Church") and there's no going back. Boblig becomes tyrannical and unstoppable, a pathetic waste of a human being who used some sort of reputation from his past to supplement his future, to torture and terrorize with Her Majesty's blessing(we see that she's easily manipulated and ignorant, fodder for Boblig to use at his advantage). When Lautner is accused of sorcery(clearly as a means to remove an obstacle which stands in his way for ultimate power), Boblig will have free reign to do as he so wishes without resistance, succeeding in having his rival imprisoned for his advocacy of "heretics" and housing a young woman(a cook who was given a his mother). This movie is grim and bleak in the tradition of other Inquisition movies such as WITCHFINDER GENERAL & MARK OF THE DEVIL. There are narrative interludes by some woman-hating religiously fanatical monk with rotting teeth, going on and on about how the female sex is the root of all evil, worthy of extermination..he's pretty foul and as obnoxious(purposely so, of course)as these loons typically are. These are the kind that need to get laid and snap out of their insane fervor. Like many of these movies, we see things spiral out of control as one man gains a position to inflict harm on others, while enjoying the luxuries and benefits that come with it. "I'm not a theologist. I'm a jurist," that's Boblig's flimsy excuse for sending innocent women to the stake to burn by fire. Thumb-screws. Leg vices. Bodies stretched by a machine(called "the rack") that pulls on the body, rope for extra pain. Lautner's cook, Susan, tortured, stripped naked, and forced to confess against the man she loves. This film can be unpleasant.As expected, these pious hypocrites with their fancy garments use God as a way to partake in their atrocious acts, when it's actually about securing property and wealth..Satan is the perfect tool in order to achieve this as Boblig goes from inquisitor to Bishop to Master, with fellow clergymen behind him also passing judgment. Deacon Lautner is a martyr who Boblig wishes to yield to acts of carnal lust in the name of Satan, for which he stands strong, with integrity, but how long can anyone last when put through the rigors of torture over a period of time? Elo Romancik's face is angelic, appropriate since his Lautner is to be put on trial and falsely accused by Boblig for ridiculous crimes he didn't commit. Vladimir Smeral is well cast as the cold-hearted Boblig, and I imagine the closing information written on screen will be sure to infuriate many viewers who, I imagine, were hoping he'd have a more gruesome fate as those he sent to death(all thirty something of them, mostly women and their husbands who confessed after enormous torture).

I have just seen the movie and I liked it more than any other movie about catholic persecution of witches. The last one I saw (and I think last one made) was The Crucible - that one wasn't bad, but I could not feel as much despair, corruption and that fear to speak up your mind as in this one. Kladivo na Carodejnice - with all the brutality, torture and all that injustice is real and very hard to forget. It is very well played and made. "Kladivo na Carodejnice" is a movie, that definitely catches your attention even when it's nearly 40 years old (not as if it was a bad thing)...that pathetic way in which some movies were made in 60's (I think it is about the lightning in these black&white movies) makes it look so threatening, so dark and sad....and so beautiful.

In a Czech town in the seventeenth century, an elderly woman enters a churchto accept communion. Her true purpose is to collect the holy host for a midwife who needs it to treat an ailing dairy cow. The woman is caught and is forced to explain her sacrilegious actions. Religious and secular authorities agree that she is in league with witches and may even be a witch herself. This prompts an inquisition where confessions are obtained through threats and torture. Atribunal is held to provide a legal facade. Though the hunt is initially confined to the impoverished fringes of local society, the hysteria soon expands to the point that no one, not even leading citizens, is safe. The ultimate target is aclergyman, Deacon Lautner, who defies the righteous men of the tribunal.Based on actual trial records from the 1678 to 1695 period, this well madeCzech film features excellent performances and strong production values. It is somewhat extreme by 1969 standards.