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Haxan

Play trailer Poster for Haxan Released May 27, 1929 1h 27m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
93% Tomatometer 28 Reviews 81% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
A hybrid of documentary and fiction, this silent film explores the history of witchcraft, demonology and satanism. It shows representations of evil in a variety of ancient and medieval artworks, offers vignettes illustrating a number of superstitious practices and presents a narrative about the persecution of a woman accused of witchcraft. The film ends by suggesting that the modern science of psychology offers important insight into the beliefs and practices of the past.
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Haxan

Critics Reviews

View All (28) Critics Reviews
Wael Khairy RogerEbert.com “Häxan” is the most fascinating horror documentary I’ve ever seen Feb 20, 2024 Full Review Mordaunt Hall New York Times The picture is, for the most part, fantastically conceived and directed, holding the onlooker in a sort of medieval spell. Oct 8, 2020 Full Review Variety Staff Variety Swedish and Danish pictures easily hold the palm for morbid realism and in many cases for brilliant acting and production. May 16, 2008 Full Review Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand One of the most beautiful and visually sophisticated films of its era, this early example of the essay film manages to be playful in its fantasy recreations and harrowing in its exploration of the persecution, sadism, and cycle of death ... Nov 16, 2024 Full Review Eddie Harrison film-authority.com …one of the great milestones in cinema history…Häxan’s brand of satanic panic defines how the patriarchy saw women, but also exposes how spurious fallacies were used to control females and keep them in their wrongful place… Rated: 4/5 Nov 4, 2024 Full Review Lindsay Costello The Stranger (Seattle, WA) Overall, we're better off with Christensen's funky, horror-tinged, quasi-feminist reading of misogyny in the world. Oct 21, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member A GOOD DOCUMENTARY ABOUT WTCHCRAFT IT HAS A REALLY GOOD ATMOSPHERE AND LOOK FOR 1922 Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 08/07/24 Full Review BigD J This film is a century old and so very creative, innovative, and really well thought out by Christensen. Not to mention, the creep factor of this film is quite glorious! Fantastic depiction of witch fear mongering. Seeing as it’s over 100 years old (1922, not ‘29 as listed), a silent Danish/Swedish film that requires English subtitles, it can be construed as a bit boring. This, because we’ve become so desensitized, over the decades. But, for those who appreciate creativity and detail, this film is a must! Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/14/24 Full Review Teddy B An effectively haunting and informative piece of work, 'Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages' provides a frankly unforgettable and quite stylish look into both the religious aspects of witchcraft and the very real, very horrifying, and very inhumane side and how modern psychology plays into both. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/21/24 Full Review Matthew B One of the more interesting experiments made during the 1920s was Benjamin Christensen's Swedish-Danish semi-documentary film, Haxan. The title means ‘Witch', and it has sometimes been renamed ‘Witchcraft Through the Ages'. The film is a curious hodge-podge of text on the screen which relates facts about witches, close-ups of old pictures portraying Satan, hell and witchcraft, and dramatized recreations of medieval scenes. The film is not without its flaws. There is some confusion of tone, structure and content. It is not always clear whether Christensen is accepting the reality and horrors of witchcraft, or condemning the treatment of those who were falsely accused. He seems to do both. The final section of the film in which Christensen tries to find modern-day parallels in our treatment of neurotic patients also involves a few tenuous connections. Nonetheless Haxan remains an impressively original film, and its unconventional structure was a deliberate choice by Christensen. The director did not just wish to make an adaptation of an existing story. He wanted a new and looser construction, one that avoided narrative, characterisation and sentimentality. Christensen studied his subject meticulously before putting it on screen. Despite its absence of a clear storyline, some cinematic trickery was involved. A carousel was used to create the impression of a large number of witches flying by on broomsticks. Also many of the scenes were shot at night to give the scenes an ominous atmosphere. The director also appears in the film. He plays himself in early scenes, and later he plays both the Devil and Christ. I cannot speak for the factual accuracy of Christensen's film, but the focus is often on dazzling the audience with extraordinary images that stick in the memory. Haxan was banned in the US, and heavily censored elsewhere. The world was not yet ready for grisly images of torture and infanticide, not to say nudity and sexual perversion. Even watching it today, I find myself a little shocked. Christensen ends the film by comparing medieval people's responses to our own attitudes today. We still believe in superstitions, such as card-reading and crystal balls. Christensen also likens the women accused of witchcraft in the past to contemporary hysterical patients. Nervous disorders cause sleep-walking, kleptomania and other aspects of unusual behaviour that were once misunderstood. Haxan was the most expensive Scandinavian silent movie ever made, and it is unfortunate that the bans put on the film prevented it from recovering the cost of the production. Christensen was unable to work in Sweden any more, as he was considered too extravagant. Viewed today, Haxan is a more admirable creation. It provides a disquieting glimpse into the fanatical superstitions of the past, and the cruelty and injustice of allowing irrational beliefs to govern the laws and thinking of society. I wrote a longer appreciation of Haxan on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/haxan-1922/ Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/24/23 Full Review ricardo d Pode até servir como contexto histórico de um filme da década de 20, mas fora isso, é um filme cansativo como alguns casos de filmes mudos que particularmente não sou apreciador. O interessante é o roteiro que amarra a bruxaria com a vida cotidiana da época num possível início a liberdade feminina. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member The documentary style and basic plot are only mildly engaging, however the effects are pretty cool, the imagery is memorable and probably daring for its time, and above all it's really interesting to see a film made a hundred years ago express ideas still relevant to this day about how societies turn their old, poor, mentally ill, weak and different into scapegoats, forced confessions, how superstition survives through the ages and how life's mysteries have been and will be explained by science. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Haxan

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Movie Info

Synopsis A hybrid of documentary and fiction, this silent film explores the history of witchcraft, demonology and satanism. It shows representations of evil in a variety of ancient and medieval artworks, offers vignettes illustrating a number of superstitious practices and presents a narrative about the persecution of a woman accused of witchcraft. The film ends by suggesting that the modern science of psychology offers important insight into the beliefs and practices of the past.
Director
Benjamin Christensen
Screenwriter
Benjamin Christensen
Distributor
Criterion Collection, Janus Films, BijouFlix Releasing, Hollywood's Attic, Kino International Corp., Vidimax, Western Video, Embassy Pictures, Something Weird Video, New York Film Annex, Grapevine Video
Production Co
Svensk Filmindustri, Aljosha Production Company
Genre
Horror
Release Date (Theaters)
May 27, 1929, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 10, 2016
Runtime
1h 27m
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