Gordon Hessler’s “Cry Of The Banshee” of 1970 is certainly one of the weaker films with the great Vincent Price, but it is still a pretty good horror flick, and certainly way underrated. I must add, however, that Vincent Price is my favorite actor of all-time and my personal opinion is that you can never go wrong with a film with Price in the lead.
Price stars as Lord William Whitman, a sadistic despot in Elizabethean England, who wants to terminate superstitious beliefs by brutally massacring followers of the ‘old religion’, a bizarre hippie-style witch cult lead by an old woman called Oona (Elisabeth Bergner). Lord Whitman, who lives in his castle with his kind-hearted daughter Maureen (Hillary Heath) his sadistic son Harry (Carl Rigg), his wife, Lady Patricia (Essy Persson), and Roderick, a young man whom the despotic lord let live with his family since childhood, shows no mercy when it comes to the persecution of the pagans living in the woods, and brutal oppression is the everyday situation in his town, where people are tortured and killed for the simple suspicion of being followers of Oona’s cult.
Some parts of the movie remind a lot of Michael Reeves’ masterpiece “Witchfinder General” of 1968, which also had Price in the lead and which is, of course, incomparably better than “Cry Of The Banshee”. Besides Price, the movie also stars Hillary Heath, who also played the female lead in “Witchfinder General”. Price is excellent as always, and Heath also delivers a good performance as his daughter. The rest of the acting differs, some performances are better, some worse, but they’re certainly not terrible. The movie certainly has a few pretty cheesy moments, but it has at least as many creepy ones. Although the violence in this movie is not comparable to the violence in “Witchfinder General”, the movie has some pretty brutal moments and some nudity, which gives the film a nice Exploitation feeling.
“Cry Of The Banshee” is certainly not one of the masterpieces with Vincent Price, but it is certainly not as bad as many seem to regard it. I personally found it very enjoyable, it definitely has some creepy moments, and I warmly recommend it to fans of Horror flicks and Vincent Price
