Showing posts with label Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922). Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2022

October 3: The Burnts & Blues of Häxan

 


Benjamin Christensen's Häxan is one the most famous silent horrors and is inculcated as really the first folk horror film (at least feature) ever made. Like many hand crafted films of the time, especially early horror (such as Nosferatu), tinting was a part of the visual package. And like other silent horror films, later prints were often grainy, heavily edited and in blanched black and white. Until these films were lovingly restored and home media packages (such as high definition blu ray) made the originals more well known than the inferior copies often circulated in the 1960's and 1970's, the vibrant colors that they contained was largely unknown to all but the most hard core film affectianados. Christensen's masterpiece was deliberately bi-colored. Largely in earthy reds and darker blues: for hell scapes and night scapes. For Spooktober, here are just a few tinted stills from Häxan




















Saturday, October 31, 2015

Silent Horror Montage




I stumbled on this on YouTube this morning--wonderful Montage from 4 silent horror films, two by Melies from 1896, one my Chomon from 1908 and quite a lot from the the truly demented Swedish/Danish film Haxan:  Witchcraft Through The Ages, by Danish born director Benjamin Christensen (for more information watch it over at YouTube).  Happy Halloween!!  Oh, and Feliz Dia de la Brujas to folks in down Mexico way!


Here is a link to my own photo tribute to Haxan from Halloween two years ago.