A Haunting Blend of Horror and History
Häxan, directed by Benjamin Christensen and released in 1922, stands as a pioneering work of silent cinema, weaving a dark and captivating tapestry that explores the history and mythology of witchcraft. Unlike other films of its era, Häxan is not content with simply telling a story—it seeks to educate, unsettle, and provoke thought in equal measure. Blurring the lines between documentary and horror, the film uses dramatized re-enactments, historical stills, and a lecture-style narrative to delve into the roots of witch hysteria, superstition, and the fears that shaped centuries of persecution.
This distinctive approach sets Häxan apart as a unique blend of genres, offering viewers both an anthropological study of medieval Europe’s fascination with the occult and a nightmarish journey into the supernatural. Its visual style—at once grotesque and mesmerizing—combined with its scholarly ambitions, creates an unsettling experience that lingers long after the film fades to black. Though it shocked audiences at the time, Häxan has earned a lasting place in the pantheon of early horror cinema, influencing generations of filmmakers who seek to explore the boundaries between fact and fear.
With its haunting atmosphere and groundbreaking storytelling, Häxan remains a testament to the power of cinema to probe the darker corners of history and the human mind. Its legacy endures, not only as a fascinating glimpse into the past but as a precursor to the many ways that horror films continue to intertwine with real-world anxieties today.
Setting the Scene: The Early 20th Century and the Rise of Occult Fascination
Häxan emerged during a period of deep cultural upheaval, released in the wake of World War I, a time when Europe was grappling with the trauma and disillusionment of a war that had shattered old certainties. This era was marked by a resurgence of interest in the mystical and the occult, as people sought explanations and solace beyond the realms of rationality and science. The brutality of the war, paired with a rapidly changing social landscape, fueled a fascination with the supernatural, as well as an urge to explore the unknown depths of the human psyche. Into this climate, Häxan offered a chilling exploration of the history and myths surrounding witchcraft—an apt reflection of contemporary fears and curiosities.
This postwar fascination with the supernatural was mirrored in popular culture, including cinema. Filmmakers and audiences alike were increasingly drawn to stories that ventured into the eerie and the otherworldly. The same year that Häxan was released, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu also debuted, casting a long shadow with its chilling adaptation of the Dracula myth. Yet, where Nosferatu leaned into pure gothic terror, Häxan carved out a distinct place by positioning itself as part history lesson, part fever dream.
Early film audiences, having already been introduced to silent-era chills with movies like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), were accustomed to the uncanny, but Häxan offered something more unsettling. Rather than solely relying on a fictional narrative, it combined the grim reality of medieval witch trials with surreal, often grotesque depictions of demonic rites and occult practices. This approach set it apart from other horror films of the time, grounding its terrors in a blend of scholarly detail and visceral imagery. It tapped into contemporary anxieties by reminding viewers that the irrational fears that fueled witch hunts were not so distant from their own societal struggles.
By positioning witchcraft as a lens through which to examine past and present fears, Häxan captured the imagination of a world still trying to understand the depths of human cruelty and belief. It became a dark mirror to its time, using the haunting specter of the past to probe the uncertainties and fascinations of the early 20th century.
The Documentary Approach: A Lecture in the Dark
Häxan is structured in a way that makes it as much an educational presentation as it is a cinematic experience, blending lecture-style segments with vivid, often disturbing dramatizations. Director Benjamin Christensen aimed to enlighten his audience about the historical context of witchcraft and the fervor that fueled centuries of persecution. To achieve this, he combined scholarly narration with graphic visual aids, transitioning seamlessly from static images of ancient manuscripts and woodcuts to fully staged recreations of demonic rituals and trials. This approach creates a dynamic rhythm that alternates between factual exposition and scenes that immerse the viewer in the nightmarish world of superstition.
Christensen’s vision was to use the medium of film to explore how myths about witches, demons, and black magic took hold of the popular imagination and became the justification for brutal trials and tortures. He guides the viewer through various periods of history, illustrating how phenomena like sleepwalking, mental illness, or physical deformities were once interpreted as signs of witchcraft. The film’s lecture-style format, complete with intertitles that detail historical beliefs, gives Häxan a unique feel, positioning it as an early example of the documentary form even as it delves deep into the world of horror.
The dramatic re-enactments are where Häxan truly blurs the line between fact and fear. Using innovative special effects, Christensen populates his film with demons that writhe and dance, grotesque apparitions, and elaborate scenes of witches’ sabbaths. He employed miniatures, creative lighting, and makeup techniques to create images that feel otherworldly yet grounded in the fears of medieval Europe. For instance, in one striking scene, a line of witches soars over the rooftops, silhouetted against a dark sky—a haunting visual that lingers in the mind. This mixture of documentary intent with theatrical spectacle enables the film to depict the psychological grip that the fear of witchcraft had over people for centuries.
By using these dramatic visualizations, Häxan achieves a sense of unsettling realism. The viewer is constantly reminded that while the demons on screen are products of myth, the human responses to these myths—panic, violence, and suffering—were all too real. The detailed recreation of torture devices and inquisitorial methods underscores the brutality inflicted on those accused of witchcraft, lending a weighty historical reality to the film’s more fantastical moments. This juxtaposition of factual context and horrific imagery makes Häxan a deeply unnerving experience, offering a glimpse into how fear and ignorance have shaped human history. In blending the documentary format with the uncanny, Christensen’s film becomes a haunting exploration of the thin line between belief and terror.
Horror in the Details: Visuals and Atmosphere
One of Häxan’s most enduring strengths lies in its rich visual style, a blend of dark, shadowy cinematography and grotesque imagery that plunges viewers into a world where superstition reigns supreme. The film’s atmosphere is dense with a sense of unease, as Christensen skillfully contrasts the dimly lit chambers of medieval torture rooms with the wild, unrestrained scenes of witches’ rituals. These visuals are drenched in shadow, casting long, creeping shapes that seem to extend the dread beyond the screen, while the intricate set designs transport the audience into the fevered visions of a time when demons and curses were as real as the stones of the dungeon walls.
Key scenes that blend horror with historical re-enactment include the chilling depictions of the Inquisition’s trials, where accused witches face harsh interrogation and brutal punishment. These moments are filmed with a stark realism that highlights the cruelty of the inquisitors, whose expressions of righteous fervor contrast sharply with the terror of their victims. Christensen’s use of stark contrasts in lighting—emphasizing the dark corners of the inquisition chambers or the flickering torchlight illuminating instruments of torture—underscores the psychological darkness of these scenes. The realism in these sequences serves to ground the film’s more fantastical elements, creating a sense of historical authenticity that deepens the horror.
In contrast, the scenes depicting the witches’ sabbath and demonic apparitions are pure nightmare fuel, embracing a surreal, almost hallucinatory quality. Christensen’s depictions of demons are exaggerated and theatrical—horned creatures with leering faces, bodies contorted in grotesque dances, and shadowy figures lurking at the edges of vision. The exaggerated costumes and makeup, combined with expressive silent-era acting, lend these figures a bizarre, unsettling vitality. One particularly haunting image shows a witch kissing the rear of a demon in a profane parody of devotion, capturing the inversion of religious rites that terrified the medieval mind. These scenes evoke the fear and hysteria that gripped Europe during the height of the witch hunts, where the devil’s influence was imagined in the mundane and the monstrous alike.
This mixture of historical context and phantasmagorical imagery creates a dual effect on the viewer, both terrifying and fascinating. The grotesque visuals challenge the audience to confront the darker side of human imagination while also tapping into deeper psychological fears. By showing us the demons that haunted the minds of the past, Christensen subtly suggests that these fears are not as distant as they might seem. It is this ability to explore the human mind’s capacity for fear—both of the unknown and of itself—that makes Häxan a precursor to modern psychological horror. The film’s nightmarish style is echoed in later works that use unsettling visuals and atmosphere to explore the fragility of the mind, from The Exorcist to the works of David Lynch.
Ultimately, Häxan’s horror lies not just in its demons and witches but in its ability to evoke the inner darkness of humanity’s past, transforming historical hysteria into a haunting cinematic experience. The film’s detailed visuals, by turns historically grounded and dreamlike, create an atmosphere that lingers like a shadow, leaving viewers to wonder where history ends and nightmare begins.
A Bridge Between Genres: Horror, History, and the Birth of Docu-Horror
Häxan occupies a unique position in the history of cinema, serving as a forerunner to the docu-horror genre—a space where the boundary between reality and fiction blurs in ways that deeply unsettle the audience. Long before films like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity used faux-documentary techniques to evoke a sense of authenticity and dread, Häxan was exploring how a factual approach could heighten horror. By presenting itself as an educational piece on the history of witchcraft, complete with academic intertitles and detailed explanations, the film lures viewers into a sense of scholarly detachment. But as the scenes shift from still images to vivid re-enactments of witches’ rites and demonic visitations, that distance collapses, and the viewer is drawn into a world where the nightmarish feels disturbingly real.
In this way, Häxan laid the groundwork for later horror films that employ historical or documentary elements to enhance their narrative impact. Movies like The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Lake Mungo (2008) use the guise of documentary storytelling to create a sense of verisimilitude, turning what could be dismissed as mere fiction into something that feels almost plausible. Häxan shares this goal, weaving together fact and dramatization to remind viewers that the fear of the supernatural once held a powerful grip over society. By grounding its more fantastical scenes in historical context, Häxan draws a direct line between the horrors of the past—witch hunts, torture, and superstition—and the persistent shadows these fears cast on the present.
Yet, Häxan’s approach is distinct from the found-footage style of later horror documentaries and mockumentaries. While films like The Blair Witch Project create tension through a sense of raw, unedited footage, Häxan is more meticulously constructed, with each scene carefully crafted to evoke both the look of medieval art and the eerie texture of a dream. Its blend of documentary commentary and fantastical imagery invites the viewer into a space that feels scholarly yet otherworldly, where the horrors of history and the surreal visions of the mind coexist. This balance between the real and the unreal makes Häxan an early example of how horror can use the format of documentary to amplify its unsettling themes, creating a sense of ambiguity that lingers long after the film ends.
The influence of Häxan is evident in the ways that later horror films have used the power of suggestion and the authenticity of documentary storytelling to unsettle audiences. The film’s willingness to immerse itself in the details of history while simultaneously embracing the macabre and the bizarre allows it to resonate with modern viewers who appreciate horror that engages with the deeper fears and myths that have shaped human belief. It is a film that challenges the viewer to consider the role of fear in shaping society’s perceptions of good and evil, blending fact and fiction into a narrative that is as much about the power of belief as it is about the demons on screen.
By bridging the realms of documentary and horror, Häxan became more than just a film about witches—it became a meditation on how society’s deepest anxieties manifest in the stories we tell. Its legacy lives on in the docu-horror films that continue to blur the lines between reality and myth, crafting tales that feel both eerily possible and deeply, hauntingly human.
Controversy and Censorship: The Shock of the New
Upon its release, Häxan immediately stirred controversy with its unflinching depictions of torture, nudity, and scenes of demonic debauchery. For audiences in the early 1920s, the film’s graphic portrayal of witches’ rituals and the lurid horrors of the Inquisition was both mesmerizing and deeply unsettling. These scenes went beyond what many viewers expected from a documentary or a silent film, leading to fierce debates over the film’s purpose and propriety. The combination of educational ambition with such visceral, shocking imagery created a tension that critics and censors struggled to reconcile. Häxan’s blend of fact-based storytelling with scenes of writhing demons and semi-nude witches made it a prime target for censorship, with authorities in several countries demanding cuts or outright banning the film.
The censorship that Häxan faced across Europe and even in parts of the United States only added to its mystique. In Denmark and Sweden, some of the film’s most explicit sequences were edited to soften its impact, while in more conservative regions, the film was banned for its perceived indecency and blasphemy. Yet, as is often the case, the very attempts to suppress Häxan helped to fuel its allure. The idea of a film too shocking for the public drew curious viewers, eager to witness what authorities had deemed too provocative. Over time, these controversies cemented Häxan‘s status as a cult classic, a film that dared to push the boundaries of what could be shown on screen.
The shock value of Häxan ties into a broader evolution within the horror genre, particularly its ongoing exploration of the limits of acceptable imagery. By refusing to shy away from the darker aspects of its subject matter, Häxan set a precedent for later horror films that would challenge societal norms and censors alike. Just as directors in the 1970s pushed the envelope with graphic violence and psychological intensity, Christensen’s Häxan was a bold statement in the 1920s, using its visual language to confront audiences with the visceral realities of fear and superstition.
In hindsight, Häxan’s graphic nature is part of what gives it lasting power. It is a film that does not simply suggest the horrors of the past but confronts the viewer with them, forcing us to grapple with both the brutality of historical persecution and the darker recesses of the human imagination. Its willingness to depict the unspeakable makes it a crucial step in the evolution of horror cinema, paving the way for later films that would explore the gruesome, the forbidden, and the transgressive. Through its controversy, Häxan challenged its audience to look beyond the surface of horror and see the reflection of their own fears and desires—a challenge that continues to resonate with viewers today.