Vincent Price and cult performance: the case of Witchfinder General

The key difficulty with the appellation ‘cult’ is that it remains in the gift of the giver and not the receiver. Cult is inescapably part of the discourse of reception studies, where it is couched as a floating signifier conferring status through a shared, though seldom well-defined, understanding. Concerns about cult appreciation as subcultural practice have, therefore, tended to overshadow the necessary examination of texts (films, directors, actors). The critical task must be to see if it is possible to find textual evidence for cult affiliation.