By consensus, Vincent Price's finest performance among his gallery of horror-movie rogues comes in Witchfinder General, the intense 1968 film that erased any hint of camp from the actor's persona.

Price plays Matthew Hopkins, a sadistic 17th-century "witchfinder" who uses barbaric methods to identify (and invariably execute) supposed witches. Along with Price's disciplined work, Witchfinder is also the best film by the talented and ill-fated director Michael Reeves, who was only 24 when he shot the movie.

The final sequence is perhaps the most harrowing fade-out of any Sixties horror picture, and offers no comforting resolution.