Cry of the Banshee

Notable only for being Vincent Price's last appearance in a costume Gothic horror movie, this overcooked collection of clichés used to be a late night TV favourite.  Clearly made to try and capitalise on the success of Price's appearance as Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General, this potboiler finds Price as a local squire in some indeterminate historical period, (the costumes suggest Elizabethan England, but it could be later), having trouble with the local witches, who seem to be a bunch of hippies.  However, as Price finds out to his cost, they're bloody dangerous hippies when pissed off, bringing down a curse on his family.  The curse takes the very literal form of Patrick Mower in a bad werewolf suit, who then rampages through the cast.

Whereas Witchfinder General was a relatively subtle film, beautifully shot on location, contrasting the natural beauty of the East Anglian landscapes with the violence of the witch hunts, Cry of the Banshee piles violent incident upon violent incident in a mixture of nondescript locations and studio sets.  Everyone overacts like crazy, especially Price who, instead of repeating his subtle characterisation of Matthew Hopkins, lays on the ham.  Disturbingly, most of the set-pieces seem devised merely as excuses to portray brutal violence against women.  Generally topless women - this is the 1970s, after all and bared breasts were now in (or out, to be accurate).   The evocation of Edgar Allan Poe's name in the trailer is mystifying as, beyond the fact that film stars Vincent Price and is produced by AIP (who, respectively, starred in and distributed most of Roger Corman's series of Poe adaptations).  But it made for good box office to try and link this film to the earlier highly profitable Poe movies, (not to mention making it easier to sell to TV as part of a 'Poe' package).  Crude and misogynistic, this isn't a patch on either Witchfinder General (also given a spurious Poe connection by AIP for its US release as Conquerer  Worm) or the Poe series.  That said, it's still a reasonably entertaining late night movie after a few pints...