3. Witchfinder General - Torture Galore (1968)
Witchfinder General, also known in some circles as The Conqueror Worm - a story by Edgar Allen Poe that it has nothing to do with, will go down in history as the first DVD, I Clare Simpson ever purchased. But enough of that malarkey, let's dig us up some controversy. Set during the English Civil war and the witch hysteria of that period, there is a very evil man called Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) roaming the countryside. You only have to whisper the word 'witch' and he is at your side brandishing a cat o' nine tails. This has dire results for lots of poor women over England including Sarah and her lover Richard. Hopkins has tortured and then executed Sarah's uncle, coerced her into sleeping with him and let his associate rape her. Understandably Richard is mad at this abberant behaviour towards his beloved and he actively seeks out Hopkins to kill. Here is where our controversial scene begins: Sarah and Richard fall into a trap put down by Hopkins. They are arrested as witches and taken away to be tortured. Needles are repeatedly jammed agonisingly into Sarah's back but Richard refuses to repent as he knows his soldier buddies are coming. He breaks free of his restraints, grabs an axe and lays into Hopkins. As Hopkins lies dying at Richard's feet, the soldiers shoot him to put him out of his misery. Richard goes bananas, completely out of his mind screaming "You took him from me! You took him from me!" over and over again. Sarah is in a similar insane state just screaming and screaming over again. These end sequences feature brutal torture of a woman, axe wielding and out and out madness. Not a very jolly ending and one with plenty of controversy. The baddie is killed but the goodies are damaged beyond repair. No wonder the director Michael Reeves took his own life with such filmic trauma surrounding him.