Dir/Wri: Benjamin Christensen | Doc, Silent, Denmark 97′
An amusing horror curio made in Denmark in 1922 that aims, in an episodic style, to tell the story of witchcraft through the ages. In conclusion director Benjamin Christensen attributes the black arts to female hysteria, as diagnosed by Freud. Some may find the lewd nude sequences a sinister representation of the occult others merely view them as the slightly crude behaviour of a bygone era. But the evocative score in some versions certainly adds to the film’s creepy allure along with the sonorous narration provided by Willian S Burroughs delivered in an offbeat style that somehow dumbs down the film’s more outlandish pretensions. @MeredithTaylor
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