The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

Just perfect...

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

When I first watched this I was so pleasantly surprised, because I had just never taken to the silent film medium before let alone genuinely loved one, I found them tedious and frankly didn't have the viewing patience required. But with this, well from the opening images of the intricate paintings of hell and demons and souls I was near-instantly hooked by the visuals of this strange production, the well thought out imagery that charted the myths and folklore of witchcraft and devil worship from ancient Egypt through the middle ages to the very real and true horror of the Inquisition was so endlessly absorbing and fascinating to me. The dreamlike sequences were so exactly what I always imagined when I thought of old Gothic fairy tale tomes and legends sprung to life that it was uncanny. It was so rich and darkly enchanting to me in its scratchy faded old decrepitude, the gnarled old witches in their filthy dank hovel giving the potion of the vilest ingredients to the woman so that she could gain the fat pig priest's attentions, and the obscene tongue lashing maniacal devil having worshippers lining up to kiss his backside and the people in creative monster costumes as well as being completely nude, dancing around in a fiery black mass. Pretty groundbreaking stuff indeed for 1922! There's such a kind of low key weird exuberance about it, and for me how it looked had a real stark, etched, weather-beaten beauty to it, it's beautifully hideous, if that makes sense! I do enjoy it as visual and thematic entertainment rather than anything that's playing at being an educational piece, and that whole side of it. If I were attempting to watch it as a kind of documentary I would have found it a real chore to sit through. For me it worked for the best when it was heaping on the bizarre special effects amid the chaotic randomness that was the otherworldly shifting scenarios that made up the narrative structure. But for how much of a messy hodgepodge of a viewing experience this 'movie' is, it consistently held my interest and I never found it growing too boring or slow. And to say it was made before my late sweet grandma was even born, it really wasn't all that stuffy and didn't take itself too seriously, it had a lot of sly mean-spirited humour about itself and the hellish and sombre subject matter. I like the special effects, for what they were they're still surprisingly decent and hold up well, such as the animated imp that crawls through the hole in the door or when the old woman is tormented by a small fortune in gold coins that scatter and leap out of her path each time she reaches down to gather them up! It's mostly like a dusky nightmare merry-go-round of freakish imagery and characters that is in fact more like something conjured up by Satan than a picture made by any mere human director! It's quite unique, among films from this or any era by my reckoning. So yes I was pleasantly Haxed, ideal spooky eye candy and a surreal and eerie atmosphere that was pitch perfect won out, and Haxan is one of a kind, nothing else quite like this one. I got quite an education!

The concept of Haxan is deceptively simple. It's a dramatization of witchcraft throughout the ages providing reenactments largely based on the Malleus Maleficarum a 13th century witch-hunting manual. There isn't really a formal narrative though director Benjamin Christensen himself becomes the reoccurring character of the devil throughout the film's various vignettes. It's split into four acts: one setting the standard for what witchcraft is, two giving the audience rhetorical and increasingly surreal "evidence" of witchcraft and the last giving us a pat explanation for witchcraft in a modern context.What sets Haxan apart from other surviving films of the silent era is it's attempt to construct a central argument and support it with "evidence" in the form of its reenactments. It doesn't work but the visual intelligence and editing of Haxan is leaps and bounds above anything Edison Manufacturing ever released. The comparisons between D.W. Griffith and Christensen are certainly well founded as Christensen provides coherence and insight amid the film's proto- surreal cinematography. He even provides some silhouetted animation that channels Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).Yet just like Luis Bunuel's L'age d'Or (1930), Haxan sells itself as a documentary of sorts. The first act of the film struts across the screen with all the authority of an anthropology professor, dully pointing at this and that as evidence of witchcraft. There are still images of paintings and woodcarvings in addition to a moving diagram of the heliocentric solar system; all signalling to the existence of witchcraft in all its ugly, foul and murderous forms. As the other acts take over, so do our emotions. Only the "bad guy" as it were, becomes hypocritical clerics and gullible townsfolk. Are these poor desperate women victims of he times or are they truly accessories of the devil? It's clear the film wants to have it both ways.The film ultimately deconstructs the act of witchcraft from one of maleficence and devil worship to one of mental illness; cheer- leading for the current time's rational thinking winning out against superstition. It's this last act's classroom lecture-like prognostications, that stringently frames what we just saw in an un- disputable context, that ruins the film. It's as if we were put into a somnambulist trance; images of an almost existential nature filling our head with complex thoughts. Then like a blunt hammer, the film knocks us into reality and asks "what did you learn?" Plus, considering the film was released in 1922, we're experiencing a "modern" rationality that included the concepts of hysteria and electroshock therapy so Haxan isn't exactly the bastion of progressive thinking it thinks it is.From a historical perspective, Haxan is an interesting little relic that provides some stunning visual tableaux that rivals Nosferatu (1922) in the horror genre. Yet as a narrative, the film is an absolute mess. It ruins any credibility it has by constantly employing heavy-handed metaphor, and at times outright saying "look how backwards we once were."

This is an interesting documentary for those that are not really familiar with the history of witchcraft and enjoyable to watch for those of us already familiar with this part of world history.If you see the English narration by William S. Burroughs you will still need to read in parts of the film - the parts where it is a silent film with intertitles (the words on screen).The last 15 to 20 minutes of the film is the best part I believe. It is explain the painful torture the "witches" had to endure. Also explained is the "contagious madness" people, including nuns, participated in or witnessed.All in all anyone interested "Witches" and "Witchcraft" should view this film, IMO.8/10

Häxan: Witchcraft Through The AgesIf magic were still considered to be witchcraft than Las Vegas magic acts would be nothing more than glitzy illusionists burning at the stake.Unfortunately, this documentary doesn't depict David Copperfield on a spit.Commencing with a narrated exposition on humanities first held beliefs towards demonology, witchcraft and Hell, this chronicle then centers on the myths surrounding Satan and witches during medieval times.Next, a parable about an old crone accused of witchcraft serves as an example of the legalities/intimidation involved with a charge of sorcery.The allegory concludes with a contemporary take on the middle-age methods for dealing with witchcraft. Present day mental institutes are also discussed.While it sounds bland on paper, this black-and-white silent film from Sweden not only has the most nightmarish depictions of Satan, demons and old hags ever, it's also very edifying.Incidentally, after prostitution, witchcraft is the next oldest female profession.Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.com