I’m trying to work my way through Vincent Prices body of work and I’ve seen some pretty impressive stuff like for example the really excellent Roger Corman directed The Fall of the House of Usher. The hokey and fun The Raven and most recently I had the chance to see Cry of the Banshee. How was it? Well the story is about this England ruler called Edward Whitman. He is a vicious and cold leader making fun of the poor and using his power to accusing pretty girls of being witches, just to watch em being tortured to death for their supposed religious practices. Of course he eventually stumbles upon a real coven of witches and when he decides to kill one of them, well, then their leader, a witch called Oona decides to take matters into her own hands and calls upon the spirit of the Banshee to execute revenge upon the house of Whitman.
After watching this film the first thing that came to mind was how similar it was in story to Tim Burtons Sleepy Hollow. In Burtons film the spirit of the headless horseman is used by an evil witch who has sold hel soul to Satan, to execute revenge and little by little kill off all the members of a rich elite family. On Cry of the Banshee the storyline is exactly the same. Only thing is here they use what they call a Banshee. A creature who howls in the night and lives in the “haunted woods” just like in Sleepy Hollow. The similarities don’t stop their, so Ill just leave it up to you to find them. But these similarities make perfect sense to me since Tim Burton is such a Vincent Price fan. It seems to me that this might have been one of Burtons childhood favorites and was an obvious inspiration for Sleepy Hollow.
Banshee also deals with religious themes of Christianity vs. witchcraft. Though I must admit that you wont know who to root for in this movie since they were both bad guys in my book. First there’s Whitmans religion which is obviously Christian, yet he is a cold hearted and soulless bastard who takes pleasure in torturing the poor and oppressed. And then there’s the witches, and in this movie they are devil worshipers hell bent on revenge. They indulge in calling Satan their “lord and master” and use voodoo dolls to cause pain and death to their enemies. So you see, there’s no good guys to root for in this movie, everyones a bastard and looking to step on the other. Which, if you ask me is the way real life is anyways.
The movie is filled to the top with cheesy acting and unrealistic performances. Its all very campy, very theatrical and over the top. But I guess most of Prices movies where done in this fashion since I’ve yet to see one where this wasn’t the case, so I just go with it and enjoy the sheer cheesiness of it all. But of course Price outshines everyone here because he hams it up, yet he takes it so seriously! You can see the guy just relished in taking a role and elevating its cheesiness to higher levels. It was also interesting to see him do a completely evil character with no likable character traits whatsoever. I’ve seen Price do evil before, and even when he is evil he is often times likable…but this is not the case.
The Banshee itself, the titular creature, was left out from most of the film. He is reduced to appearing in shadows and in silhouette until the grand finale when he decides to show his ugly face. The make up is suttle yet effective.
On the bonus side, this flick has so much gratuitous breast shots that it actually become funny for me to count how many boobs they were going to show! Just when you thought you had your obligatory boob shot…up pops another one. It seemed like every time some dude wanted to ask a girl if she was a witch, it was obligatory to open up her blouse with a knife and let the boobs do most of the talking. Heh, it kept me amused but also kind of felt overdone and unnecessary.
All in all a nice film, but I’m sure Vincent Price had better films under his belt. By the way, I keep hearing Vincent Prices film The Conqueror Worm (aka Witchunter General) as a far superior “hunt down the witches and burn em” flick. I guess Ill do my best to hunt that one down.
