#2 - Cry of the Banshee (1970)
In 17th century England, Lord Whitman (Vincent Price) is obsessed with hunting down witches and practitioners of the "old religion" - which is supposed to be Druidism I think but they also worship Satan and dress up like ancient Greeks for some reason. When he massacres a bunch of the witches, their leader places a curse on the Lord's estate and Whitman and his sons begin dying one by one.
This is a total mess. Despite the title, there are no banshees to be seen - it's basically a witchcraft story with some werewolf elements thrown in. It tries to paint the witches as the good guys, but having them worship the devil and kill people severely undermines that. It's fun to watch Price chew the scenery and act like a total dick, but it's not enough to make up for how lousy the rest of the film is. It's also pretty rapey - there are at least 4-5 scenes of women getting assaulted and having their blouses torn off. I get that the Whitmans are supposed to be evil, and that the filmmakers were probably required by the studio to include a certain amount of nudity, but there had to be a better way of going about it.
By far the best part of the film is the opening titles that are animated by Terry Gilliam in a very Monty Python-esque style, however they are both too goofy and too good compared to the rest of the movie. I can't think of a reason to watch this over something like Witchfinder General, a much better film that also features Vincent Price hunting witches. Just watch the title sequence here:
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