Häxan: Witch­craft Through the Ages (1968)

Häxan (Eng­lish title: The Wit­ches or Witch­craft Through The Ages) is a 1922 Swedish/Danish silent hor­ror film writ­ten and direc­ted by Ben­ja­min Chris­ten­sen. Based part­ly on Christensen’s stu­dy of the Mal­leus Mal­e­fi­carum, a 15th-cen­tu­ry Ger­man gui­de for inqui­si­tors, Häxan is a stu­dy of how supers­ti­ti­on and the misun­derstan­ding of dise­a­ses and men­tal ill­ness could lead to the hys­te­ria of the witch-hunts. The film was made as a docu­men­ta­ry but con­ta­ins dra­ma­ti­zed sequen­ces that are com­pa­ra­ble to hor­ror films. With Christensen’s meti­cu­lous recrea­ti­on of medieval sce­nes and the leng­thy pro­duc­tion peri­od, the film was the most expen­si­ve Scan­di­na­vi­an silent film ever made, cos­ting near­ly two mil­li­on Swe­dish kro­nor. Alt­hough it won accla­im in Den­mark and Swe­den, the film was ban­ned in the United Sta­tes and hea­vi­ly cen­so­red in other count­ries for what were con­side­red at that time gra­phic depic­tions of tor­tu­re, nudi­ty and sexu­al per­ver­si­on.[ In 1968, an abbre­via­ted ver­si­on of the film (77 minu­tes as oppo­sed to the original’s 104 minu­tes) was released, entit­led Witch­craft Through the Ages. This ver­si­on fea­tured an eclec­tic jazz score by Dani­el Humair (play­ed by a quin­tet inclu­ding Jean-Luc Pon­ty on vio­lin and Dani­el Humair on per­cus­sion) and dra­ma­tic nar­ra­ti­on by Wil­liam S. Burroughs.