Plot
The film is set in Elizabethan England and revolves around a wicked magistrate who tries to kill all the members of a coven of witches.
Lord Charles Whitman is hosting a great feast when suddenly two poor and ragged-looking little children enter the great hall. A burst of wolf-like howling from outside the walls warns that they may be "devil-marked." The lord decides to kill them in spite of the risk. As his eldest son sleeps with his pretty young wife and his daughter seeks out her favorite hairy-chested servant for comfort, Lord Whitman begins mumbling that he wants to "clean up" the witches in the area, especially "that decrepit old bag, Oona."
Assisted by his two older sons, Whitman goes hunting in the hills for witches, odd characters, and "persons of interest." His armed posse breaks up what is apparently meant to be a witches' Black Sabbath, but none of the strangely glassy-eyed and zombie-like young people dancing slowly in their underwear seems to have any knowledge of Oona's whereabouts. Whitman gives the order to "torch this place, grease 'em all" and many of Ooona's followers are killed.
This makes the leader of the coven, Oona, extremely angry. To get revenge on the Whitman clan Oona calls up a magical servant, a "sidhe", to destroy the lord's family. Unfortunately, the demonic beast takes possession of the friendly, decent young servant that free-spirited Maureen Whitman has been in love with for years. The possessed lad makes Maureen rebel against her father, and destroy all his protection against evil spirits. Soon the once proud family are virtually prisoners in their own home, the grounds surrounded by a growing pack of wolves that howl and prowl.
Meanwhile, Lord Whitman's youngest son Michael comes home from school and is appalled by his father's cruel actions. As the wolf-howling outside grows ever louder, he begs his father to mellow out and to help his sister. But instead Charles Whitman has his own son killed for being "soft" on witchcraft. Whitman then tries to escape in his elegant coach with his daughter and her lover. Instead he finds that demons are driving the coach! Whitman dies horribly, along with his remaining children.
The titular "cry of the banshee" is the signal that someone will die.
Read more about this topic: Cry Of The Banshee
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
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—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)