Kieran_Kenney Review of Häxan

Häxan (1922)

A turely mind-boggling experience, no matter which version you see.

[10/10 · 18 August 2003]

There are probably spoilers in here, so watch out! Enter at your own risk. So I'm walking through Borders the other night and what do I come upon but the Criterion collection version of this movie. I'd heared a lot of vague things like "one of the most bizarre film ever made" and I'd always wanted to. I hadn't actually seen it, and the fact that I'd never before been able to locate a copy of it was always nagging at me. Here was my chance to own it, so I got it. Wow. This has got to be one of the the trippiest pieces of film ever put togeather. Can you name any other movie that reproduces so vividly those famous woodcuts from the middle ages showing the witches sabbath? Are there any other films that offer the same pitch-black whit and irony that this movie does, or that recreates the middle ages so vividly? And what other movie has a scene were a bunch of pretty wenches dance lustfully on a cross and then get down and kiss Satan's backside? Yes, there's all that. There is all that and more. There are scenes where a tiny old woman slips a love potion into the drink of a slobbering, gluttonous monk that has stolen her heart. There is a scene where a warlock unwraps a hand and arm he took from a human corpse and breaks off one of the fingers (I think he then eats it, if my memory serves me). There's some dead baby foo, heaps of naked flesh, crazy nuns running around, torture scenes, and (best of all) a bit where the devil himself, played by director Benjamin Christiansen, appears at a window to temps a nude wife to leave her sleeping husband and come out and play in the garden. At times it feals like an porno made by Anton LeVey, with a strangely sexy devil as the centerpiece. In every scene, though, we're garenteed Rembrant lighting, brilliant art direction and an exceptional cast of characters. There are several versions of this movie. As of yet (this review), I've only seen the two versions that are on the Criterion disk. Of the two, I'll saw that I did not prefer the 1968 version, although anything that William Burroughs is involved with can't be all bad.