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The Forgotten Horror Prodigy:
A Profile of Michael Reeves

 

When Michael Reeves died, aged just 25, in 1969 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates, one of Britain’s most brilliant filmmaking talents died with him.

In a career lasting just five years, Reeves had gained a reputation for highly stylised and unique filmmaking on the basis of just four-and-a-half movies. They included Castle of the Living Dead, Revenge of the Blood Beast, The Sorcerers, the seminal shocker Witchfinder General and The Oblong Box, on which Reeves had just begun working when he died in his sleep.

In the 36 years since he died, Reeves has been largely forgotten within global horror circles, eclipsed by directors like Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis and, perhaps, John Gilling, who churned out dozens of low-budget chillers in long and sometimes turbulent careers.

Yet Reeves’ films, particularly the grim and unrelenting Witchfinder General (known in the States as The Conqueror Worm), have kept his name alive among British fans, who recognise the touch of genius in the film which unquestionably contains Vincent Price’s career-best performance.

In a century of filmmaking Britain has produced only a handful of horror pictures that can be rightly described as classics. Among them are Dead of Night, Night of the Demon, Night of the Eagle, The Innocents, Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Brides of Dracula, and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. Witchfinder General is up there with the best of them - a terrifying, brutal tale, based on truth and boasting all the best that sheer horror and Grand Guignol can offer.

Born in 1944, Reeves, a cineaste and film scholar, broke into movies by flying to Los Angeles and brazenly turning up on the doorstep of his idol, the American director Don Siegel, to ask for a job. Siegel, himself a film fan as well as a filmmaker, took him on as a dialogue director. Returning to England, Reeves graduated a few rungs up the ladder, working as a gofer on movies like The Long Ships and Genghis Khan before moving into television commercials.

Another break came via producer Paul Maslansky, who allowed Reeves to work on a few scripts and engaged him as assistant director on Castle of the Living Dead, a cheapie European horror being shot in Italy starring Christopher Lee. When director Warren Kiefer became sick, Reeves was encouraged to bump up his contribution and, with a second unit, shot some stylish footage including a circus sequence featuring Donald Sutherland as a witch.

Reeves' work resulted in Maslansky offering him a script, Vardella, which
was to be variously re-titled Revenge of the Blood Beast, Satan’s Sister and The She-Beast. Italian favourite Barbara Steele starred as an indestructible witch. Though it was shot on a minuscule budget, and the script (re-written by
Reeves under a nom-de-plume) was somewhat tedious, Revenge of the Blood Beast illustrated the promise of what Reeves could do with a banal horror movie.

Back in England after his Italian sojourn, Reeves battled to set up
new projects and eventually, with friend and partner Tom Baker, penned a script from John Burke's novel The Sorcerers. The eventual movie, again shot on a tiny budget, would star horror legend Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey as an elderly married couple who, through a unique method of hypnosis, can live vicariously through young people and feel their emotions. An intense combination of horror movie and Peeping Tom-style voyeurism, it provided yet more building blocks for the reputation Reeves was beginning to forge - that of an original and highly inventive young filmmaker.

Reeves' brief but brilliant career reached its peak with Witchfinder
General in 1968, a project he had adapted, with Tom Baker, from the dry
historical novel by Ronald Bassett. The project was picked up by American International Pictures, which hired Reeves to direct his own script but disagreed with him over his choice of star. Reeves wanted Donald Pleasence; he got Vincent Price.

From day one Reeves and Price were at loggerheads, principally because
Reeves openly revealed he was unhappy with the casting of Price. He felt
the 56-year-old star was too identified with the OTT films of Roger Corman,
and that his acting was hammy and affected.

Over the five-week shoot the Young Turk and the old star frequently locked horns. Reeves told Price not to shake his head, to play down his character, the witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, and present him as a menacing psychotic.
Price, shaken at his director's obvious dislike of him, concentrated on the job, and in doing so gave the performance of his career. Hopkins emerges as cold, reptilian, dead-eyed, mercenary and murderous.

In a stark film he is the starkest thing in it - a sinister figure in black scything through the English countryside, plucking innocents at random and hanging or burning them as witches until he is brought down by the power of good, represented by a young soldier. Witchfinder General was a big success for AIP, and for Reeves, who succeeded, almost single-handedly, in changing the face of the British horror film.

Despite their differences, Reeves and Price were scheduled to work together
again on two other pictures: The Oblong Box and Scream and Scream Again.
Both men got as far as costume fittings and preparation for the first when Reeves was found dead. (Both films would eventually be made by Gordon Hessler).

An inquest recorded an open verdict, but Reeves had apparently overdosed on barbiturates. Producer Tony Tenser claims his death was accidental, that
Reeves went to bed with a headache, took some tablets, still had the
headache and took some more. Independently wealthy and with “a nice girlfriend”, Reeves, said Tenser, would never have killed himself. Price had a different opinion. He claimed Reeves was unstable and had attempted suicide frequently before; having broken up with his girlfriend, he finally succeeded.

And so as Reeves died, a myth was born. More than 30 years later, he remains a lost talent - a young man on the verge of massive success who, like James Dean, died before he could truly realise his tremendous gifts.

Michael Reeves - Filmography

Born: October 17, 1943
Died: February 11, 1969

1960 Carrion (student short) (dir, act)
1960 Flaming Star (observer)
1961 Intrusion (short) (dir)
1963 The Long Ships (dialogue coach)
1964 Genghis Khan (runner)
1965 Castle of the Living Dead (2nd unit dir, co-scr, both uncredited)
1966 Revenge of the Blood Beast (dir, co-scr)
1967 The Sorcerers (dir, prod, co-scr)
1968 Witchfinder General (dir, co-scr)
1968 The Oblong Box (pre-prod work as dir)