1922 Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.
Benjamin Christensen Ella La Cour Emmy Schønfeld Kate Fabian Oscar Stribolt Wilhelmine Henriksen Elisabeth Christensen Astrid Holm Karen Winther Maren Pedersen Johannes Andersen Elith Pio Aage Hertel Ib Schønberg Holst Jørgensen Clara Pontoppidan Else Vermehren Alice O'Fredericks Gerda Madsen Karina Bell Tora Teje Poul Reumert H.C. Nielsen Albrecht Schmidt Knud Rassow Ellen Rassow Frederik Christensen Henry Seemann Karen Caspersen Show All…
The Witches, Häxan - A Feitiçaria Através dos Tempos, Heksen, Boszorkányok, A Feitiçaria Através dos Tempos, La stregoneria attraverso i secoli, La sorcellerie à travers les ages, Noita, Czarownice, Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, Die Hexe, La brujería a través de los tiempos, Ведьмы, Vrăjitoria de-a lungul veacurilor, Η Μαγεία Μέσα από τους Αιώνες, Hexen, 헥산: 마녀들, Häxan. La brujería a través de los tiempos, Häxan: La brujería a través de los tiempos, Witchcaft Through the Ages, Čarodějnictví v průběhu věků, Häxan: Η Μαγεία Μέσα από τους Αιώνες, Häxan, La Sorcellerie à travers les âges, Häxan: A Feitiçaria Através dos Tempos, Cadılar, Відьми: Історія чаклунства, 女巫
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Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
France
Sweden
Germany
USA
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Netherlands
FranceU
France
Germany
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A purported clinical documentary on witchcraft and satanism drawn almost entirely in unhinged expressionist horror images including foggy subterranean lairs, women giving birth to hairy horned beasts, moody nighttime broomstick rides, and general hysteria/torture that doubles as a timeless document on how fearmongering and religious imagery have been used throughout history as an excuse to torture women, even in times of supposed scientific enlightenment. Has to be one of the most overtly grotesque movies made in this period including detailed accounts of medieval torture devices and on-screen baby sacrificing. I couldn't take my eyes off the incredible sets and costumes, especially when this goes full fire-and-brimstone, hellish nightmare painting imagery with pig men, skeleton horses, clawed demons, and boiling cauldrons filled with people.
"Oh, you learned men!"
For some reason I always thought this was a hysterical reactionary relic about the occult, but it's actually the exact opposite of that, a reason-oriented look at the phenomenon of witch hunts that even finds room for a little bit of wry humor amidst the torture and tragedy. It's also a very effective example of horror and fantastic imagery's ability to point the way towards real truths, in this case how terrible life can be when superstition and fear hold sway over those in power. A lesson like that has obvious implications that go beyond the puritan days, and which become explicit in the surprisingly sensitive last chapter.
Do y'all know how funny it is to have someone walk behind you, and having to explain you're watching a silent Swedish documentary about witchcraft?
A History of Horror Weekly Challenge 2018
Week 1: Silent Cinema
Listen, I’m not going to lie here. I generally don’t enjoy silent films. I have no doubt that had I been around in those days I would have loved them like I love modern movies, but I wasn’t so I don’t. Maybe I’m just a product of my generation or maybe it’s just my ridiculous attention span but I just want to make that disclaimer up front because having said that, I was shocked to find how much I loved this.
Apparently, there are many versions of this movie floating around. My choices were the 1922 Swedish Film Institute print or the 1962 slimmed down/jazzed up print. I started…
This movie is 50% historical documentary, 50% surrealist horror, and 100% the horniest movie ever made.
This movie SLAPS!
Seriously, like what a fun movie. I love the little devil guys that wiggle their tongues and the weird witches going around cursing people. This movie feels super punk like 60 years early. The acknowledgement of the role the devil still plays in "modern times" adds depth and motivation for this project. While he criticizes the methods used in torturing witches in the middle ages, he points out the devil's work in the ailments of present day women.
I was expecting this to be fun, I wasn't expecting it to be so thought provoking. Great movie!
#Watchlist 2021
Harrowing – but not for the reason you'd believe. Christensen's docu-fiction details the dark corners of black magic and witchcraft haunting our existence ever since the ancient times – but proves how the darkest of corners is not the Devil himself but our own capability for evil.
Häxan shuns the externalities of satanism and descends not into the nine circles of hell but into the fathomless depths of our own mind. It shows how, out of fear against the unknown, we construe false beliefs and exert our inability of explaining what we cannot see on our fellow humans. Our true fear lies not in witches or in the devil, but in our powerlessness of giving meaning to something…
Häxan, or The Witch, boldly documents and illustrates witchcraft during the middle ages. It’s full of unique and visually-compelling fictional episodes that are both impressive in their costume designs and special effects. Benjamin Christensen interestingly directs some segments in a humorous tone — mocking the nonsensical torture techniques and ridiculous claims people were forced to confess. I’m fascinated this was allowed to be screened during the 1920s. The dark ages were a strange time, to say the least.
Christensen had very clear ideas in his head. More than a mere testament promoting witchcraft's condemnation, Häxan is cinema going one step forward... while giving a tremendous power to the political and social influences that the documentary genre could have over a society. This gorgeous piece of art not being destroyed and eliminated from the phase of the Earth is completely beyond me. It is our responsibility to literally build statues and monuments to this glorious masterwork, an authentic taboo breaker, masquerading its tremendous societal commentaries with delightful staged sequences.
100/100
In what seemed to be a labour of love for its writer and director Benjamin Christensen, Häxan is a fascinating silent about the development of witchcraft with some attention-grabbing visuals as it chronicles the journey from it's pagan origins to the contemporary onset of comprehending mental illnesses.
It's an unusual quasi-documentary that's segregated into different elements, with the first part more or less performing as a slideshow to inaugurate its central portion and to prepare its final stage contrasting with modern reasoning. It moves into dramatic reenactments of witchcraft cases involving a plethora of Faustian imagery with some notable manifestations of demons, and the makeup is impressive. It additionally incorporates an excellently staged reenactment of a black magic ritual in…
begins as a narrative guide to its world before turning it an evergrowing hellish delirium where devils roam the forests and mess with the living. dogmatic faith's violent purity tests manifest as witch hunts where women are tortured until they lose their grip on reality, or life itself. close-ups of their screams & teary eyes capture lost souls: the unexplainable compels them as desolation and mania grows, until their sense of self immolates. timeless & foundational horror. [x]
