Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

Ben Mankiewicz introduces Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, 1922.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, 1922.

Maintaining his disinterested commentary, writer-director Benjamin Christensen changes subjects from witches to the devil, portrayed on screen by himself, in the controversial Danish-Swedish kind-of documentary Haxan, 1922.

The opening in which Danish writer, director and semi-star Benjamin Christensen introduces himself, rational and objective, with little indication of how freaky things will become, from the international sensation Haxan, 1922.

Following a series of gruesome and perhaps gratuitous anecdotes, writer-director Benjamin Christensen resumes his expository tone as he reviews tools of torture, which we'll see used on suspected witches, in the quasi-documentary Haxan, 1922.