Here is a rare and vexing original US 22" x 28" movie poster for Gordon Hessler's depressing and convoluted stab at the witchfinding subgenre, Cry of the Banshee (1970). Between Vincent Price's misogynist magistrate, bereft of the intimidating evil that marked Price's performance in Michael Reeves' superior Witchfinder General (1969), and the completely unsympathetic witch Oona who curses Price, there are no characters for the audience to identify with on any level. Add to that a bleak and muddy mise en scene rife with plague, unerotic nudity, gratuitous torture and flat performances and you've got to really work hard to access any reward from the experience. Of course, if you are into nihilistic films with scenes that recall the Monty Python and the Holy Grail "Bring our your dead!" and "Burn the witch" sequences, there is some fun to be had. The colorful depictions of sex and sacrifice on this creepy 22" x 28" poster do perhaps sound a warning shot, but the version American International Pictures exhibited in the US was shorn of most of its violence and nudity so audiences might have thought it a bit of a false alarm. The British version also features a brilliant title sequence animated by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, likely the highlight of the film and tying in well with some of the nasty scenes that somehow border on parody.