Häxan: Witchcraft’s Silent Grip on Sanity and Superstition
A 1922 silent masterpiece that dissects the hysteria of witch hunts, blending stark documentary evidence with visceral reenactments to expose humanity’s darkest delusions.
In the annals of cinema, few films straddle the line between historical inquiry and outright terror quite like Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan. Released in 1922, this Danish production, subtitled Witchcraft Through the Ages, dares to probe the medieval obsessions with sorcery, possession, and punishment, using a pioneering mix of lecture-style exposition and nightmarish dramatisation. What begins as a scholarly examination spirals into a haunting critique of fanaticism, mental fragility, and societal cruelty, leaving audiences to ponder the thin veil separating fact from fevered imagination.
- Christensen’s bold fusion of documentary footage and staged horrors redefines early cinema’s approach to the supernatural, influencing generations of filmmakers.
- The film’s unflinching portrayal of misogyny and hysteria in witch trials reveals timeless truths about power, repression, and the female psyche.
- Through innovative visuals and effects, Häxan captures the grotesque essence of superstition, cementing its status as a cornerstone of horror’s intellectual wing.
The Alchemical Brew of History and Horror
Benjamin Christensen opens Häxan with a professorial tone, wielding diagrams, medieval woodcuts, and anatomical illustrations to map the supposed geography of witchcraft across Europe. From the seventh century’s early accusations to the frenzied persecutions of the 15th to 17th centuries, he charts a timeline of terror, emphasising how Church doctrine intertwined with folk beliefs to demonise the unknown. This introductory segment, spanning the first 20 minutes, functions as a pseudo-lecture hall, with Christensen himself narrating via intertitles and appearing as a bespectacled scholar. Yet, this is no dry treatise; the grainy close-ups of torture devices and demonic iconography pulse with an undercurrent of dread, priming viewers for the visceral reenactments to come.
The film’s structure unfolds in seven chapters, each escalating from intellectual detachment to immersive nightmare. Chapter One posits witchcraft’s roots in ancient paganism, drawing parallels between Mesopotamian stelae and Scandinavian runes. Christensen illustrates demonic hierarchies with meticulous detail, showing horned entities emerging from shadows cast by flickering candles. This methodical buildup mirrors the slow boil of historical hysteria, where rational inquiry gives way to irrational fear. By grounding his narrative in authentic artefacts—reproduced from sources like the Malleus Maleficarum—he lends an air of authenticity that amplifies the horror, making the past feel perilously close.
As the chapters progress, Christensen shifts gears, reenacting infamous trials with a cast of non-professional actors whose raw performances evoke the era’s brutality. In one sequence, a Swedish noblewoman, modelled after real 17th-century figures, confesses under duress to sabbaths and shapeshifting. The camera lingers on her contorted face, sweat beading under harsh lighting, as she describes flying on broomsticks anointed with infernal ointments. These scenes, shot in stark black-and-white, utilise double exposures and superimpositions to depict spectral flights, blurring the line between physical action and hallucinatory vision.
Unholy Visions: The Devil Takes Flesh
Central to Häxan‘s power is its personification of Satan, portrayed by Christensen himself in a tour de force of grotesque transformation. With elongated prosthetics for a cavernous maw, rolling eyes, and a serpentine tongue, the director embodies pure malevolence, slithering through village hovels to tempt the pious. One pivotal scene unfolds in a 15th-century Italian convent, where nuns succumb to possession: bodies writhing in unnatural contortions, foam flecking lips, voices issuing guttural blasphemies. Christensen’s Devil orchestrates the chaos, his shadow elongating across stone walls to ensnare souls, a visual metaphor for temptation’s insidious creep.
These possession episodes draw from historical accounts, such as the Loudun possessions or the Aix-en-Provence affair, but Christensen amplifies them with cinematic flair. He employs low-angle shots to dwarf human figures against towering demonic silhouettes, heightening vulnerability. The intertitles quote trial transcripts verbatim, detailing symptoms like levitation and clairvoyance, yet the staging suggests psychological origins—hysteria masquerading as the supernatural. This duality forces viewers to question: are these women vessels for evil, or victims of repressed desires and societal pressures?
A particularly harrowing vignette centres on a beggar woman accused of maleficium, her torture escalating from thumbscrews to the rack. Christensen films the implements in extreme close-up, gears grinding silently as flesh yields, the agony conveyed through exaggerated expressions and spasmodic limbs. No blood is spilled on screen, yet the implication hangs heavy, evoking the real deaths of tens of thousands during the European witch craze. This restraint amplifies the terror, inviting the mind to fill in the brutality.
Silent Screams: Sound Design in a Wordless World
Though a silent film, Häxan anticipates sound cinema through its rhythmic editing and implied acoustics. Restored versions pair it with scores by composers like Häkon Ibsen or Jørgen Nielsen, featuring dissonant strings and tolling bells to underscore torment. Christensen’s intertitles serve as auditory proxies, their stark language—’The Devil’s claw pierces the flesh!’—evoking shrieks in the imagination. This absence of dialogue heightens universality, allowing the film’s horrors to transcend language barriers.
In group sabbath scenes, mass hysteria erupts: naked forms cavorting around bonfires, kissing the Devil’s posterior in ritual obeisance. The choreography, frenzied yet precise, mimics historical engravings by Hans Baldung Grien, with superimposed flames licking the frame’s edges. Christensen’s use of slow motion during flights captures ethereal grace turning grotesque, brooms thrusting obscenely as witches ascend. These effects, achieved via practical models and matte work, remain startlingly effective, predating similar techniques in films like F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.
Effects That Haunt: Pioneering the Grotesque
Häxan‘s special effects section merits its own reverence, as Christensen pushes 1922 technology to visceral limits. Stop-motion animation brings familiars to life: toads hopping with unnatural jerkiness, pigs transforming into imps via seamless dissolves. One sequence dissects a witch’s potion, with ingredients morphing in macabre close-ups—eyeballs pulsing, mandrakes shrieking silently as roots twist like veins. These innovations rival Georges Méliès’ fantasy work but ground them in pseudo-science, aligning with the film’s thesis that witchcraft stems from misunderstood pharmacology and mental states.
Full-body prosthetics for the Devil include a retractable tail and mechanical jaws, allowing expressive menace. Christensen experiments with oversized sets for dwarfing effect, nuns appearing Lilliputian against colossal crucifixes. Practical gore is minimal, but implied: a birthing scene shows a toad emerging from a witch’s womb, symbolising diabolic impregnation. These techniques not only terrify but educate, illustrating how medieval minds interpreted epilepsy or ergotism as sorcery.
The film’s climax pivots to modernity, linking historical witches to contemporary ‘hysterics’ in asylums. Christensen films restrained women echoing past victims, straitjackets replacing racks, suggesting continuity in misogynistic control. This bold equivalence sparked controversy upon release, with censors in Denmark and Britain slashing sequences for obscenity.
Misogyny’s Medieval Mask
Themes of gender permeate Häxan, portraying witchcraft accusations as weapons against female autonomy. Over 80% of executed witches were women, often widows or healers, their herbal knowledge twisted into maleficia. Christensen spotlights this injustice through characters like Anna, a poverty-stricken mother whose petty theft spirals into capital sorcery under interrogation. Her arc—from desperate theft to coerced confession—exposes torture’s unreliability, echoing modern critiques in Karen Armstrong’s histories.
Possessed nuns embody repressed sexuality, their ecstasies blurring piety and perversion. Freudian undercurrents abound, with sabbaths as orgiastic release. Christensen, influenced by emerging psychoanalysis, implies mass delusion over genuine occultism, a radical stance for 1922. Yet, he avoids didacticism, letting images provoke interpretation.
Class dynamics emerge too: elites prosecute the poor, using trials for property grabs. This socio-economic lens enriches the horror, transforming supernatural scares into pointed social commentary.
Echoes Through Eternity: Legacy and Influence
Häxan profoundly shaped horror, inspiring The Witch (2015) and The VVitch‘s historical authenticity, or Mark of the Devil‘s exploitations. Its 1968 recut with sound and rock score by Chambers Brothers introduced it to psychedelic audiences, dubbing it ‘witchploitation.’ Restorations preserve tints—sepia for history, blue for night—enhancing mood.
Production tales abound: Christensen self-financed after studying texts in Copenhagen libraries, casting locals for verisimilitude. Shot in Sweden for tax breaks, it faced bans for blasphemy, yet premiered triumphantly in Copenhagen. Its endurance underscores silent cinema’s potency.
Ultimately, Häxan endures as a mirror to fanaticism, reminding us that history’s monsters often wear human faces. In an age of conspiracy, its warnings resonate afresh.
Director in the Spotlight
Benjamin Christensen (1879–1959) was a Danish polymath whose curiosity spanned pharmacy, law, and filmmaking, birthing one of horror’s most idiosyncratic visions. Born in Copenhagen to a family of modest means, he trained as a pharmacist, a profession influencing Häxan‘s alchemical obsessions. Rejecting a stable career, he studied law briefly before theatre beckoned, performing under the pseudonym ‘Robert Storm Petersen.’
Christensen’s cinematic odyssey began in 1919 with The Mysterious Footprints of Stockholm (1919), a crime thriller showcasing his flair for atmosphere. Häxan (1922) followed, a self-financed epic born from five years of occult research, blending Expressionism with documentary. Though controversial, it garnered acclaim at Cannes precursors and influenced Carl Dreyer.
Exiled to Hollywood in 1923 due to scandals, he directed Haunted Gold (1928) and Seven Footsteps to Satan (1929), occult-tinged silents marred by studio constraints. Returning to Denmark, he helmed The Kiss of Death (1932), a sound crime drama, and Family Frenzy (1938). Late career included Witches of Salem (1958 TV), echoing Häxan.
Influenced by Nordic folklore and German Expressionism, Christensen pioneered docudrama. His filmography: Fru Jeanna (1920, adaptation); The Night of the Big City (1923); Mockery (1927, with Lon Chaney); Black Magic (1932); Everything on Account (1935, comedy). Retiring post-WWII, he died in 1959, legacy revived by 1968 rerelease.
Actor in the Spotlight
Benjamin Christensen doubles as Häxan‘s star, most memorably as the Devil, a role demanding physical extremity. Beyond acting, his screen presence as scholar and demon showcases versatility. For depth, consider Clara Pontoppidan (1887–1975), luminous as the possessed nun Maria, her expressive eyes conveying inner turmoil.
Born in Copenhagen to actors, Pontoppidan debuted on stage at 16, joining Royal Danish Theatre. Film career ignited with Nordisk Films: At the Moment of Death (1913). Urban Gad’s muse, she shone in The Abyss (1915), Asta Nielsen rival.
Post-Häxan, roles in Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book (1920), Pension Munk (1926). International: The Magician (1926, Sjöström). Sound era: People of the Sea (1937), Tag til marked i Fjordby (1957). Awards eluded, but revered in Danish canon. Filmography: Den sorte kansler (1916); Et kvindemysterium (1918); Felicia (1920); Paaskeliljer (1922); Don Q’s Love Story (1927); Den kloge mand (1936); Lykkens musikanter (1956). Retired gracefully, embodying silent grace.
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