this film was made in 1968 and is loosely based on a poem by edger allen poe. it was directed by Michael Reeves, Produced by Tigon films(UK) and it stared vincent price. This is because the actor is popular and the films based on poe books make large profits. The actor was going to be donald pleasance but because of his popularity with horror fans, vincent price was hiredThe director did not make any more films because he died a year later at the age of 25. The film was originally called 'the conqueror worm' because it is the name of the poem. The film has references to the culture of the UK because at the time the swinging 60's was coming to an end and hippies started to disappear because the public was accepting the violent reality, for example there was news of 4 people being killed at a rolling stones concert. The film has scenes of violence as it follows the culture of the middle ages as they found killing people on the streets was an acceptation. This can be compared to the time of release where people were protesting about street violence and the audience can think that our times are not as bad as what it used to be.
The film was such a violent film that horror on that level was not seen before so the BBFC was concerned about it. BBFC stood for british board of film censorship, so their job was to make the film safe for the public and they did this by making the screams shorter and quieter because they were to long for the audience to stand. The BBFC has changed its name now because the law does not state that films must be censored but now they must be classified so they use a range of symbols to identify what the minimum age of viewers must be. this means that films can be as horific as they want but the rating will be higher.
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