Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)
This isn’t just a film review. No, this is me—somebody who has spent way too many hours arguing about whether Gremlins 2 is secretly the greatest meta-textual critique of capitalism ever made—rambling about a 100-year-old Danish “documentary” where the director literally plays Satan and gets his rocks off scaring nuns. Let’s do this.
Häxan (1922): The World’s First Satanic PowerPoint That Accidentally Invented Modern Horror
Cast & Crew Biographies:
“Meet the Brave Souls Who Agreed to This Demonic Book Report”
Benjamin Christensen (1879–1959): Opera singer turned director turned literal Satan. The guy wrote, directed, AND played the Devil in Häxan. That’s like if Tommy Wiseau made The Room but also dressed up as the spoon painting. Christensen made The Mysterious X (1914), wowed people with shadows, then spent his goodwill making Häxan. Hollywood briefly hired him, shoved him at Lon Chaney for Mockery (1927), then said, “Thanks for the Satan butt-kissing movie, now please go away.”
Joan Ankerstjerne (1889–1957): Cinematographer and actor. One of the first cinematographers in Denmark. Without him, this would look like a stage play. With him, it looks like Bosch paintings shot through a nightmare filter.
Maren Pedersen: The MVP. Non-professional. Christensen found her in a poorhouse because she looked exactly like a woodcut witch. She doesn’t act—she just exists—and it’s terrifying.
Oscar Stribolt (1872–1927): Usually a comic actor in Danish slapstick. Here he plays panicked villagers. Imagine casting Jack Black as “Guy Screaming at Satan.”
Clara Pontoppidan (1883–1975): A Danish stage legend. She plays accused women with real pathos. She’s the one holding this thing together whenever Christensen gets too tongue-waggly.
Tora Teje (1893–1970): Swedish film star. Beautiful, tragic, dragged into witch trial scenes like, “Oh cool, so THIS is my career now?”
Elith Pio (1887–1983): A prolific actor. Here, a human utility knife: townsfolk, priests, generic medieval sad guy.
Karen Wither (Winther): Ensemble actress. She specializes in fainting, shrieking, and generally looking miserable. Silent scream queen.
Poul Reumert (1883–1968): One of Denmark’s great actors. He’d normally be starring in Hamlet. Here, he’s just another monk in a robe watching Satan menace nuns.
Astrid Holm (1893–1961): Heartbreaking actress from Dreyer’s Phantom Carriage. Adds actual gravitas. She’s the “oh right, this is tragic” reminder amid demon tongue wagging.
Alice O’Fredericks (1899–1968): Young actress here, later became Denmark’s most prolific female director. She basically sat through Christensen’s madness, took notes, and thought, “Cool, I’ll do it better and without demon butt jokes.”
Benjamin Christensen (1879–1959): Opera singer turned director turned literal Satan. The guy wrote, directed, AND played the Devil in Häxan. That’s like if Tommy Wiseau made The Room but also dressed up as the spoon painting. Christensen made The Mysterious X (1914), wowed people with shadows, then spent his goodwill making Häxan. Hollywood briefly hired him, shoved him at Lon Chaney for Mockery (1927), then said, “Thanks for the Satan butt-kissing movie, now please go away.”
Joan Ankerstjerne (1889–1957): Cinematographer and actor. One of the first cinematographers in Denmark. Without him, this would look like a stage play. With him, it looks like Bosch paintings shot through a nightmare filter.
Maren Pedersen: The MVP. Non-professional. Christensen found her in a poorhouse because she looked exactly like a woodcut witch. She doesn’t act—she just exists—and it’s terrifying.
Oscar Stribolt (1872–1927): Usually a comic actor in Danish slapstick. Here he plays panicked villagers. Imagine casting Jack Black as “Guy Screaming at Satan.”
Clara Pontoppidan (1883–1975): A Danish stage legend. She plays accused women with real pathos. She’s the one holding this thing together whenever Christensen gets too tongue-waggly.
Tora Teje (1893–1970): Swedish film star. Beautiful, tragic, dragged into witch trial scenes like, “Oh cool, so THIS is my career now?”
Elith Pio (1887–1983): A prolific actor. Here, a human utility knife: townsfolk, priests, generic medieval sad guy.
Karen Wither (Winther): Ensemble actress. She specializes in fainting, shrieking, and generally looking miserable. Silent scream queen.
Poul Reumert (1883–1968): One of Denmark’s great actors. He’d normally be starring in Hamlet. Here, he’s just another monk in a robe watching Satan menace nuns.
Astrid Holm (1893–1961): Heartbreaking actress from Dreyer’s Phantom Carriage. Adds actual gravitas. She’s the “oh right, this is tragic” reminder amid demon tongue wagging.
Alice O’Fredericks (1899–1968): Young actress here, later became Denmark’s most prolific female director. She basically sat through Christensen’s madness, took notes, and thought, “Cool, I’ll do it better and without demon butt jokes.”
Act I – “Welcome to My Demon PowerPoint”
Christensen sets the stage with a lecture: “Here’s the medieval cosmos. Here’s where people thought Hell lived. Here’s a wax demon who looks like he was sculpted by an apprentice blacksmith on NyQuil.”
It’s literally Cosmos but hosted by the Crypt Keeper. Wax figures, woodcuts, and slides of the “universe” as understood by monks who thought Saturn was a demon frisbee.
Kemo rant: “This is the only horror movie that starts like your 10th-grade substitute teacher pulling down the projector screen, except instead of mitochondria it’s, ‘Here’s where Satan lives, kids.’”
Scholar note: This opening INVENTED docu-horror. No Blair Witch, no Paranormal Activity, no Netflix Ancient Aliens garbage without this.
Act II – “The Witch Kitchen & Satan’s Booty Call”
Boom! We cut from slides to full dramatization. Witches in a hovel, stirring cauldrons, throwing in frogs, snakes, and probably somebody’s cat. Maren Pedersen owns this scene—her face alone is a cinematic curse.
And then Christensen, in his horned Satan outfit, shuffles onscreen with the most gleeful “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this” grin. He wiggles his tongue. He makes witches kiss his butt. He invented heavy metal AND Jackass in one shot.
Kemo rant: “Imagine if Spielberg cameo’d in Jaws, but as the shark, and instead of eating Quint he just made out with villagers. That’s Christensen here.”
Scholar note: This act set the visual shorthand for witches forever: cauldrons, broomsticks, Sabbaths. Spirit Halloween owes Christensen royalties.
Act III – “Trials & Tortures: The Medieval Game Show”
Accused women dragged before priests, tortured until they confess. Clara Pontoppidan and Astrid Holm give actual tragic performances—you forget you’re watching a movie where Satan literally mooned people ten minutes earlier.
We see thumbscrews, dunking, racks. It’s brutal, not sensationalized.
Kemo rant: “This is every EULA you’ve ever signed. ‘Do you agree you’re a witch?’ ‘No.’ [crank] ‘Okay, fine, I’m a witch, can I install the app now?’”
Scholar note: This is Christensen’s thesis: witch hunts = systemic misogyny disguised as theology. He’s sneaking feminism into a horror circus. Without this act? No Day of Wrath, no The Crucible.
Act IV – “Nuns Gone Wild”
Karen Wither and Emmy Schønfeld faint, convulse, and scream like their lives depend on it. Elith Pio plays the priest muttering, “What is happening?”
Kemo rant: “This is basically Girls Gone Wild: Vatican Edition. Somewhere in 1922, a censor fainted straight into his porridge.”
Scholar note: This sequence birthed the nunsploitation genre. Ken Russell’s The Devils basically remixed this act with louder music and Oliver Reed screaming.
Act V – “Satan’s Menagerie: The Heavy Metal Album Cover”
Johs. Andersen dies again, Poul Reumert tries not to laugh under his monk hood.
Kemo rant: “Pause ANY frame in this act and congratulations, you’ve designed the cover for a Scandinavian death metal band. Häxan basically printed money for Hot Topic 80 years early.”
Scholar note: This act’s imagery directly influenced surrealists, Disney’s Fantasia (“Night on Bald Mountain”), and del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.
Act VI – “The Psychology Pivot”
Whiplash time: Christensen says, “Actually, witches weren’t real. They were just women with trauma, hysteria, or mental illness.” Cue modern (1920s) women in hospital beds, doctors fussing, Alice O’Fredericks fainting artfully.
Kemo rant: “This is like if Evil Dead II stopped mid-chainsaw and Ash turned to the camera like, ‘Guys, maybe this is unresolved childhood trauma.’”
Scholar note: This was radical in 1922. Christensen reframed witchcraft as psychology. Without it? No Repulsion, no Black Swan, no Hereditary.
Act VII – “The Empathy Epilogue”
Christensen reappears. No horns, no tongue. Just professor mode: “So witches weren’t real. But cruelty was. Don’t torture grandma. The end.”
Kemo rant: “It’s like Ken Burns ending The Civil War by setting himself on fire, then calmly saying, ‘Anyway, trauma is real, thanks for watching.’”
Public Reaction (1922)
Audiences: Scandalized. People fainted. Critics were split: half screamed “pornography!” half whispered “genius.”
Censors: Sweden, Germany, U.S.—banned or butchered. The U.S. release was basically just Christensen’s PowerPoint slides.
Box office: Financial flop. Christensen’s career went straight to the medieval stocks.
Audiences: Scandalized. People fainted. Critics were split: half screamed “pornography!” half whispered “genius.”
Censors: Sweden, Germany, U.S.—banned or butchered. The U.S. release was basically just Christensen’s PowerPoint slides.
Box office: Financial flop. Christensen’s career went straight to the medieval stocks.
Influence on Cinema
Immediate (1920s–30s): Dreyer stole the witch-trial aesthetic for Day of Wrath. Expressionists grabbed the grotesque demons. Universal Horror filched its Gothic vibe.
Mid-century (1940s–60s): Surrealists loved it. Exploitation filmmakers mined its torture porn.
Modern: Every witch movie, every found-footage horror doc, every A24 goat owes it. The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar. Häxan is their weird Danish grandfather.
Immediate (1920s–30s): Dreyer stole the witch-trial aesthetic for Day of Wrath. Expressionists grabbed the grotesque demons. Universal Horror filched its Gothic vibe.
Mid-century (1940s–60s): Surrealists loved it. Exploitation filmmakers mined its torture porn.
Modern: Every witch movie, every found-footage horror doc, every A24 goat owes it. The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar. Häxan is their weird Danish grandfather.
Rerelease (1968 & Beyond)
1968 U.S. Rerelease: Narrated by William S. Burroughs, who sounded like he was describing a sandwich while nodding off. Hippies adored it. Became a midnight movie icon.
Modern Criterion/A24 Era: Now it’s a cornerstone. Film nerds worship it. Goths project it at parties. Satanic Panic moms would still faint.
1968 U.S. Rerelease: Narrated by William S. Burroughs, who sounded like he was describing a sandwich while nodding off. Hippies adored it. Became a midnight movie icon.
Modern Criterion/A24 Era: Now it’s a cornerstone. Film nerds worship it. Goths project it at parties. Satanic Panic moms would still faint.
Final KEMO Verdict
Häxan is everything at once:
A silent docu-horror.
A surrealist nightmare.
A feminist critique.A heavy metal concept album.
And a sociology lecture that ends with, “Don’t torture grandma.”
It flopped in 1922, shocked in 1968, and now rules 2020s arthouse horror.
