Witchfinder is a 2013 American-made short film directed by Colin Clarke and starring Dave Juehring and Valerie Meachum. It is part of the Daredevil Films stable which is based in Rockford, Illinois. It won the Best Narrative Film Award at the 2013 Mosaic World Film Festival.
“After putting a witch to death, a righteous witch hunter finds himself haunted by a spectral curse in this award-winning short horror film from director Colin Clarke (Raven’s Hollow, Frankenstein vs the Wolfman). In the spine-tingling tradition of Hammer Films, Mario Bava, and the classic Witchfinder General, with a scary ending guaranteed to creep you out enough to sleep with the lights on!”
A noteworthy lesson in ‘less-is-more’, Witchfinder, over the course of 18 minutes, achieves more through what it doesn’t show and a surprising stillness to the cinematography and performance than many offensively-budgeted films do over a tortuous 90 or more minutes. There’s little to shake the rafters in terms of plot innovation but the balance of driving forward the plot whilst maintaining a measured and restrained drama to proceedings is impressive. A simple, broken local approaches his local neighbourhood witch, asking for the object of his affections to turn her attentions from her lover to him. Witch obliges through some messy smearing and some incantation of Devil names. Witchfinder interrupts, gets busy with a hammer and an iron mask – bad things happen. What more do you need?
Shot in rural Illinois in a distant time of Goodwives and succubi, on a very basic level this is competent enough not to have digital watches and flashy cars on show but far more than this, there’s little to suggest this was made with limited resources. One would hope that even with money to burn the film-makers would keep things this simple. The acting is not stellar but no-one disgraces themselves and there are no attempts at make-me-a-superstar histrionics. There’s no time to give us heady character development or complex back-stories, so we’re left with a good old-fashioned yarn, one without showbiz and larks but heavy on atmosphere and a strange sadness. It must be said that short films do little for me as a rule, filling a gap in the market I don’t recognise as necessarily being there but Witchfinder shows promise for bigger and better things. It also nails my attention-span at being pretty much dead on 18 minutes.
Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia
