Best movie of this year hands down!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Tired of fighting against a coven, an aristocratic lord humiliates the leader of a revered witch and sends them out on a mission of vengeance against him and his kingdom to settle the score once and for all.Frankly, this one was overall quite decent and enjoyable but certainly has a few minor flaws as well. Among the better aspects here, the best is undoubtedly the fact that this one certainly manages to really explore the idiotic nature of misunderstanding witchcraft among those who supposedly hunt them down for a living, here basically making them the living embodiment of taking every single notion of their livelihood as meaning their indulgence in witchcraft and the need for punishment. The harassment of local weapon for wearing supposed jewels and charms of local witch clans, any sort of odd behavior or going against even the most foolhardy of orders makes for a rather intriguing following to the authority here wherein you want to see them fail as befits their stupidity against the innocents among them, and that indeed sets up the film's two big marks in its torture scenes and the final comeuppance. The torture here is kept within realistic realms, mainly public humiliation and spectacle around whipping or branding with scalding irons, and a later scene of gaining a confession by tying one up to wooden posts and setting it on fire makes for a wholly enjoyable piece, while the revenge tactics of the final half are just plain enjoyable. The animal attacks in the forest, turning the wife on him with her behavior at the dinner reception and finally the ending here is all part of the total package of revenge and it really seems to be worthwhile and truly earned which is always a plus. On the negative side, the fact that this one tends to really ham-fist itself here when it comes to the exploitative side of things despite that indeed being part of the film's aim as if wallowing in those areas are beneath it. The violence and gory kills are nearly nonexistent as are the tortures here by keeping it in the mostly realistic realm and there's barely any nudity despite several scenes of the hunters lecherously ripping their shirts and blouses open to torment them as this shifts the camera around to avoid that altogether which really questions why it would've been included anyway. As well, there's not a whole lot of action out witch-hunting since this instead focuses on them talking about the coven and they danger to him they posses rather than explicitly show it, so it suffers from that small factor as well though on the whole this one is quite good.Rated R: Violence, Language, Nudity and themes of incestuality.

The wicked and powerful magistrate Lord Edward Whitman (Vincent Price) is a witch hunter with his cruel sons Sean (Stephan Chase), Burke (Michael Elphick) and Bully Boy (Andrew McCulloch) in a small village in England. His wife Lady Patricia Whitman (Essy Persson) is deranged with the wickedness of Edward. His daughter Maureen (Hilary Heath) is secretly in love with her stepbrother Roderick (Patrick Mower), who was an orphan found by Edward wandering on the fields.Edward's son Harry (Carl Rigg) returns home after graduating in the university with Father Tom (Marshall Jones) that is assigned to the local parish and he is surprised with the behavior of his father and brothers. Edward hunts down the witch Oona (Elizabeth Bergner) and her harmless followers and kills many of them. Oona summons Satan seeking revenge against Edward and the Whitman family. Satan's emissary surprisingly is Roderick, who has power to control animals and was born by fire. Will Roderick be capable to harm his foster family?"Cry of the Banshees" is a cruel horror movie one of the best performances of Vincent Price in the role of a cruel magistrate. The sets and costumes are realistic and a good replica of a medieval village. The creature looks like a werewolf and not a banshee. Oona's followers seem to be in a bacchanal and not worshiping the devil. The plot begins showing the cruelties of Edward and his sons with the poor women in the name of God but in the end it seems to support their abusive behavior showing the victims as Satanists. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): Not Available

I'd seen two films from director Gordon Hessler prior to seeing this one, and they're both wildly different. One was the excellent Gothic horror The Oblong Box, while the other was the uneven and mostly terrible waste of a great of a cast, Scream and Scream Again. This film falls somewhere in the middle in terms of quality. Cry of the Banshee actually reminded me a lot more of the classic film Witchfinder General than either of Hessler's previous efforts, although it is nowhere near as good as that one. The plot features themes of witchcraft and witch hunts, as we focus on the evil Lord Edward Whitman, slaughterer of peasants and a man with an on-going war against a coven of local witches. He opts to murder a number of them in front of leader; a witch named Oona. However, this turns out to be a poor decision as Oona uses her magic powers to call up a magical being known as a 'Banshee', whom she uses - along with some members of Lord Whitman's own family - to bring a curse upon his entire household.Obviously, my main reason for seeing this film was because of the fact that it features a starring performance from the great Vincent Price. This is not Vincent Price's greatest performance, but he still completely owns the film in every sequence that he's in (and he's in most of them). The character he plays in Cry of the Banshee isn't the most rounded character he's ever played, and therefore it isn't the most interesting - but hey! It's still Vincent Price. The way that the plot plays out is mostly good enough to hold the audience's interest; there isn't a great deal of suspense in the film, but director Gordon Hessler does a good job of creating the right atmosphere and setting up a suitable 'feel' for the film. The banshee isn't what you'd usually think of when that word springs to mind; which gives the film an element of memorability. The ending is decent enough, although it is rather predictable and overall, it has to be said that Cry of the Banshee is a more than passable. Sure, it's not brilliant - but Vincent Price fans are likely to enjoy it, and it gets a recommendation from me.

Title: Cry of the Banshee (1970) Director: Gordon Hessler Cast: Vincent Price Review: 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.Rating: 3 out of 5