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Häxan (1922)

09/18/1922Documentary, Horror, History1h 45m
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Overview

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.

Top Billed Cast

  1. Cast 1

    Benjamin Christensen

    Devil

  2. Cast 1

    Ella La Cour

    Karna, Sorceress

  3. Emmy Schønfeld

    Karna's Assistant

  4. Cast 1

    Kate Fabian

    Old Maid

  5. Cast 1

    Oscar Stribolt

    Fat Monk

  6. Wilhelmine Henriksen

    Apelone, a Poor Old Woman

  7. Elisabeth Christensen

    Anna's Mother

  8. Cast 1

    Astrid Holm

    Anna

  9. Cast 1

    Karen Winther

    Anna's Sister

Next time you look around and wonder where all the sparrows have gone, just be thankful you didn't live in a time where their bodies were pulverised to make a potion to ward off evil spirits! That's just one of the examples cited in this interestingly whacky look at all things devilish and malevolent. It's not the most rational of tours of the witching sorority, but it does by the end of the sixth chapter converge on quite a potent evaluation of the absurd, the terrifying, the superstitious and the religious and quite successfully demonstrates the plethora of overlapping philosophies, manipula...