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Related Images invites readers behind the scenes and into the sketchbooks of working filmmakers to learn more about their creative processes.Elizabeth Sankey’s Witches is now showing exclusively on Mubi.Witches.Title cards are an underappreciated art and a powerful tool for every director. They can punctuate a moment, make it more comic, shocking, or beautiful. They can hold your hand and lead you sweetly down the garden path of the story you’re about to experience, or they can undermine your expectations and throw you for a loop. Even their placement in the runtime can have a huge impact. In the black-metal revenge thriller Mandy (2018) Panos Cosmatos waits 75 minutes before abruptly kicking his title card onto the screen. Conversely Luca Guadagnino places the card for Call Me by Your Name (2017) at the end of the film to enhance Elio’s heartbreaking stare into the fire, intensifying his crushing...

Mere mortals have been fascinated by witchcraft for hundreds of years, and the film industry has taken note, with witch-themed movies going back more than 100 years.

In 1922, the silent partly documentary-style Swedish film “Haxan” sought to understand the roots and misunderstandings of witchcraft, and the mania that surrounded the witch hunts. Controversial at the time, it is now considered one of the most influential of the early horror films. Less than 20 years later, Margaret Hamilton would make the Wicked Witch the standard for evil witches, and help make “The Wizard of Oz” a timeless classic.

SEE25 best TV witches, ranked worst to best

In the decades since, witches have appeared in just about every genre of film. Early romantic comedies “I Married a Witch” and “Bell, Book and Candle” were so popular they inspired the classic 1960s TV series “Bewitched.” But while a witch’s antics on the small screen were amusing audiences,...

While in New York City to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her monster international hit “The Babadook,” Australian writer/director Jennifer Kent took a stop over at the Criterion Closet and proved that she not only enjoys making spooky movies — she likes watching them too. Her first pick of the shelf was one of the first films of the horror genre, the 1922 silent essay piece “Haxän: Witchcraft Through the Ages.” Kent described the film as “a huge inspiration for ‘Babadook.'”

She added, “It’s about the devil and about witchcraft, it’s also about women going nuts. Fantastic.”

Kent’s next selection was from her home country, Peter Weir’s 1977 mystery “The Last Wave,” which she’d initially avoided watching because she misconstrued the title.

“I’m embarrassed to say, I thought it was a film about surfing. It’s not a film about surfing,” said Kent. “It’s...

“Sabrina the Teenage Witch” is a certified Criterion title, believe it or not.

The beloved franchise about a beloved occult teen, iconically played by Melissa Joan Hart, is officially amongst the new streaming selections for the Criterion Channel. “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” centered on Sabrina (Hart), a high school student who lives with her two aunts Hilda (Caroline Rhea) and Zelda (Beth Broderick) as she navigates coming into her powers. Her cat Salem (Frank Conniff) also provides snarky spiritual guidance.

The ABC-produced franchise was based on the comic book series that debuted in 1971. The “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” show is available to stream on Paramount+ as of 2023.

The 1996 TV movie was a spinoff of the TV series, and was followed by 1998’s “Sabrina Goes to Rome” and 1999’s “Sabrina Down Under.”

Now, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” joins Criterion’s “Witches” programming for October 2024, ushering in the 40-year anniversary of the Criterion platform.

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Does anyone remember the Satanic panic? It was a bizarre mix of urban legend, conspiracy theory, media frenzy, and religious fanaticism that occurred primarily in the early 1980s. The phenomenon was marked by thousands of alleged incidents of ritualized abuse, often involving children, and desecrations reportedly perpetrated across the nation by scores of so-called Satanic cults in towns and cities everywhere. While many of the reports were later found to be baseless—and the initial investigative techniques used to supposedly substantiate them discredited—the aftermath of the panic remains with us today in the shape of things such as QAnon and PizzaGate.

The roots of the Satanic panic were found in the late 1960s and ‘70s, thanks to books like The Satan Seller, social changes like the rise of the counterculture in the national zeitgeist, infamous events like the Manson Family murders, the introduction of new religions into American society,...

Where are all my witches at?

I, like many women of my age, spent a formative part of my youth enamored with the idea of witches. While Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn’t quite my bag, I adored Charmed. My VHS copy of Practical Magic got more play than a yo-yo. And, of course, I was an avid viewer of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Did I myself dabble in magical arts, though? No, and I won’t pretend I did either. But man, did I so often wish that one day I’d just wake up with magical powers. I also wished I’d wake up one day and have a twin, too, as I also voraciously devoured the T*Witches novel series.

When it came to classic Halloween tropes, witches often received the lightest treatment for a long time. Witch media, post the long-standing green-face, wart-nosed, pointy-hat likeness instead...

For over 25 years, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival called the Castro Theatre home. With the iconic theater now closed for a year-plus-long renovation, Sfsff has relocated to the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, located in a beautiful park created for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition at the north edge of the Presidio. The auditorium, primarily a performance space, seats nearly a thousand and features a spacious foyer where passholders could visit and relax between shows (particularly useful on chilly weekends).

Sfsff prides itself on mixing landmark productions and audience favorites with rediscoveries, revelations, and rarities, often recently uncovered and restored. And for its 27th edition this year, the festival presented 20 features and six short films over five days, all with live musical scores by some of the finest silent film accompanists in the world.

The opening night film, Albert Parker’s 1926 swashbuckler The Black Pirate, certainly qualifies as both landmark and favorite.

In our jaded present, it’s hard to imagine that there was once a time when film audiences took the “based on a true story” claim seriously. At this point, we’re all fully aware that artists sometimes have to embellish the truth in order to prove a point – and sometimes simply to entertain. In fact, the very act of creating a faux-reality to tell a story has since evolved into an artform in and of itself. While Ruggero Deodato is often credited with having invented Found Footage with 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust, the truth is that the genre and its current off-shoots have been slowly creeping into existence since the early days of cinema.

Pioneers like Benjamin Christensen (1922’s Häxan) and surrealist Luis Buñuel (1933’s Land Without Bread) were already experimenting with the idea of combining fact and fiction in convincing pseudo-documentaries, and that’s not even mentioning Orson Welles...

Mere mortals have been fascinated by witchcraft for hundreds of years, and the film industry has taken note, with witch-themed movies going back more than 100 years.

In 1922, the silent partly documentary-style Swedish film “Haxan” sought to understand the roots and misunderstandings of witchcraft, and the mania that surrounded the witch hunts. Controversial at the time, it is now considered one of the most influential of the early horror films. Less than 20 years later, Margaret Hamilton would make the Wicked Witch the standard for evil witches, and help make “The Wizard of Oz” a timeless classic.

SEE25 best TV witches, ranked worst to best

In the decades since, witches have appeared in just about every genre of film. Early romantic comedies “I Married a Witch” and “Bell, Book and Candle” were so popular they inspired the classic 1960s TV series “Bewitched.” But while a witch’s antics on the small screen were amusing audiences,...

Despite how prevalent they are in spooky media, you’d be surprised at how rare it used to be for traditionally recognizable witches to be the main antagonists in scary movies. Sure, we got the eerie crones of the pseudo-documentary Haxan and even a dancing coven in Suspiria, but for the longest time, witches were relegated to humorous stereotypes akin to the Sanderson Sisters rather than anything truly terrifying. It’s only recently that modern classics like The Witch and Gretel and Hansel have made potions and broomsticks scary again, revisiting the disturbing origins of these myths in ways that genre films of the 20th century simply couldn’t handle.

There are a few exceptions to this rule, however, and one of my favorites just so happens to be a bizarre trilogy that dared to ask what would happen if a potion-brewing maniac from the early days of America found himself transported to modern times.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

’90s Horror, Art-House Horror, and Pre-Code Horror

It’s October, which means you are likely crafting an endless queue of horror films to consume. When it comes to a single streaming service to dedicate your eyes to this month, The Criterion Channel takes the cake with three different series. First up, ’90s horror brings together such films as The Rapture (1991), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The Addiction (1995), and Ravenous (1999), while Art-House Horror features Häxan (1922), Vampyr (1932), Eyes Without a Face (1960), Carnival of Souls (1962), Onibaba (1964), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Sisters (1973), Eraserhead (1977), House (1977), Suspiria (1977), Arrebato (1979), The Brood (1979), The Vanishing (1988), Cronos (1993), Cure (1997), Donnie Darko (2001), Trouble Every Day (2001), Antichrist (2009), and more. Lastly, Pre-Code horrors brings together ’30s features such as Freaks (1932), Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Old Dark House...

Religious extremism is as old as religion itself. A belief in sorcery and witchcraft as some ungodly source has always been present when it comes to Christian fundamentalism – most often resulting in witchhunts and senseless deaths by hanging, burning at the stake, or drowning. It’s the fear of the unknown that has caused innocent lives to be stricken down, and it’s always efforts done in the name of God. That it is their duty to cleanse the world of perceived evil before it spreads and consumes all they know and love.

Where 1922’s Häxan sketches a broader narrative about witches and witchhunts from the Middle Ages to the then-present day in Denmark, Witchhammer stages its story amidst the Northern Moravia witch trials in the mid- to late 1600s. Both films take great care to dig into the accused’s humanity – that they were just normal people going about...

Clockwise from top left: Fair Play (Netflix), Pain Hustlers (Netflix), Us (Universal), Get Out (Universal)Image: The A.V. Club

Jordan Peele fans rejoice—Netflix brings the horror hits Get Out and Us to its library just in time for Halloween movie marathons. Also on deck is the David Yates crime...

Horror is slaying the box office in 2023, accounting for 12 of the year's top 45 films through July. The genre is also killing it with critics: 43 horror movies are rated "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. 2023 will likely go down as one of horror's greatest years, but not because of those reasons.

Horror fans know kills mean nothing without context. Because of ticket costs, comparing eras through the box office lens is like judging your waistline in a funhouse mirror. Similarly, critical praise can mislead because modern horror critics are often genre fans while, older generations many times did not understand the genre's value. When comparing horror eras, you need to close your eyes to tomatoes and ticket sales, and instead focus on your heart and your gut — then let it all spill out.

While ranking the 14 greatest years of horror cinema, I gave greater weight to foundational horror because it laid the groundwork for modern horror's ascension.

From Haxan to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, horror cinema has been stretching the definition of reality for well over a century now. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who still believes in the “based on a true story” claim that often accompanies genre releases, with most audiences having already come to terms with the fact that Hollywood productions aren’t exactly meant to be educational.

That being said, there are still a few unconventional projects that can successfully blur the line between truth and fiction, such as Animal Planet’s infamous series of cryptid-based mockumentaries which tricked audiences into believing that mermaids and megalodons could be living among us. And while these televised oddities were presented in an admittedly irresponsible manner, there’s no denying that they made for some solid entertainment – and there’s one of these faux documentaries in particular that I think should...

Competition titles include Cannes Critics’ Week winner ‘Tiger Stripes’.

South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) is set to open its 27th edition with Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid, starring Joaquin Phoenix, and close with the world premiere of Takashi Shimizu’s Sana.

The festival will run June 29 - July 9 with its award ceremony on July 7, followed by the screening of Sana.

Best known for The Grudge, J-horror master Shimizu’s latest film follows the disappearance of an idol group’s members and an eccentric private detective’s investigation into the matter. Shimizu received the Screen International...

Walpurgisnacht, also known as Walpurgis Night or Hexennacht, is a pagan holiday celebrated on the night of April 30th. It is named after Saint Walpurga, an eighth-century nun who Christianized parts of Germany. However, the holiday has roots in pagan traditions that celebrate the coming of spring and the triumph of life over death. It is also associated with witchcraft and supernatural phenomena, making it a perfect occasion to indulge in some spine-chilling horror films.

So, grab some popcorn and get ready for a night of scares with these ten chilling recommendations for Walpurgisnacht.

1. Dracula (1931)

What better way to kick off Walpurgisnacht than with the most iconic vampire movie of all time? Dracula (1931) stars Bela Lugosi as the titular count who travels from Transylvania to England to spread his curse of the undead. The beginning of the film is actually set on Walpurgisnacht, as Renfield (Dwight Frye) arrives at Dracula...

Growing up as an immigrant in a non-English-speaking household, subtitled movies were pretty standard for me. In fact, I still have the bad habit of turning on subtitles whenever they’re available, regardless of language. As a young man, it never occurred to me that this wasn’t the norm, and that’s why I always thought it was strange that American studios would remake foreign films in English instead of simply distributing them normally.

Obviously, there are a myriad of cultural and economic reasons explaining why this isn’t the case, but it’s also worth noting that not all remakes are created equal. I may have spent a large chunk of my life lamenting every time an American remake of a foreign horror flick was announced, but even I have to admit that some filmmakers are actually capable of successfully translating the elements that made scary stories effective...

I will be the first to admit that streaming debates are not my thing. The vast amount of streaming services that are out there right now makes it extremely hard to navigate the media landscape, and the market seems to be inching closer to reinventing cable. All I want to do is watch my silly little programs -- I don't want to spend minutes combing through different libraries and searching "[Insert Movie Here] streaming" on Google to do so! Unfortunately, this is the climate that I and many others must navigate, and because I'm not smart enough to think of a better solution, I must do the best with what I have.

If you're a horror fan like I am, then navigating the streaming world is even harder. There are just so many movies that either aren't available, are only available on the most niche service possible, or have some sort of limitation to the version that's streaming.

Although most synonymous with the Halloween season, witches have woven their way onto the silver screen at every time of the year since the earliest days of the motion picture. From the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz to the Sanderson Sisters in the Hocus Pocus films, witches have long been popular characters, as well as common archetypes in general, akin to the likes of superheroes, vampires, or even Santa Claus. The witch has kept her place as a very common figure in the stories told on film.

When you think of a witch, you probably picture an image of an old and stereotypically ugly woman cackling on a broomstick or hovering above a cauldron. But if you examine all the many witches that have been a part of cinematic history since its inception, there’s actually a huge variety to the archetype. While the stereotypical...

Two of the greatest horror films of all time are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year. The first, and best known, is F.W. Murnau’s unparalleled vampire epic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Not quite as well known but at least as influential is Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, also known as The Witch, a truly unique artifact in the history of horror filmmaking. By calling it an “artifact” I do not mean to imply that it is a dusty old relic. In fact, the film is surprisingly lively, engaging, and perhaps above all, subversive.

Danish director Benjamin Christensen presents Häxan under the guise of a teaching tool, a filmic lecture on the history of witchcraft, but this is something of a ruse. By wrapping his intentions within this format, Christensen was able to frankly and graphically depict some of the most taboo subjects and images of the age. Today,...

Horror and Opera presents: Nosferatu

Scoring original silent film soundtrack for Murneau’s 1922 classic!

The Halloween season is quickly approaching, and a haunted virtual opera theater once again opens its mysterious gates. Founded and single-handedly run by a one-woman horror composer and trained operatic singer Alia, Horror and Opera venture is dedicated to exploring the best public domain classics of silent horror cinematography and bringing these classics to life by composing and scoring original operatic soundtracks to match the atmosphere of the films.

Last year Horror and Opera delivered an original and critically acclaimed re-scoring of Benjamin Christensen’s Haxan that received an honorary designation “Projects We Love” from Kickstarter platform, as well as was reviewed by horror media trendsetters like Rue Morgue and HorrorNews.

This year, we invite you to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Murneau’s Nosferatu, as we are working on a truly special score to match the 1922 classic.

Though their “’80s Horror” lineup would constitute enough of a Halloween push, the Criterion Channel enter October all guns blazing. The month’s lineup also includes a 19-movie vampire series running from 1931’s Dracula (English and Spanish both) to 2014’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the collection in-between including Herzog’s Nosferatu, Near Dark, and Let the Right One In. Last year’s “Universal Horror” collection returns, a 17-title Ishirō Honda retrospective has been set, and a few genre titles stand alone: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The House of the Devil, and Island of Lost Souls.

Streaming premieres include restorations of Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’amour and Ed Lachman’s Lou Reed / John Cale concert film Songs for Drella; October’s Criterion editions are Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns, Bill Duke’s Deep Cover, Haxan, and My Own Private Idaho. Meanwhile, Ari Aster has curated an “Adventures...

Halloween Horror Nights time is finally here! The haunt, on both the East and West coasts at Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood, is among the most popular in the world. We here at /Film know a thing or two about this annual event, but we also know that attending it could be a bit of a hassle. There's a lot of travel, planning, and strategizing that needs to happen in order for an Hhn trip to come to fruition. Unless you're local to either Los Angeles or Orlando, it's not something you can just go to on a whim.

That's why we've created this handy streaming guide. Some of the movies here will be featured at either the Hollywood or Orlando events, while others are more similar to houses based on vibes and themes. No matter what, though, this guide will surely include something that will fill the Hhn-sized hole in your heart.

Cinema is such a costly medium that directors have little chance to experiment between features. It’s not like music or painting — relatively low-cost art forms whose practitioners can try new techniques in the secret obscurity of their studios until their bold ideas are ready to be shared. Making movies takes a crew, and equipment, and actors; all of that takes money, which in turn obliges directors to do their R&d in public, on projects that critics can and do hold up to unfair scrutiny.

A few workarounds exist, including commercials and music videos, through which such film artists as David Lynch, Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson have refined their craft, but if they’re not careful, taking such gigs can look like selling out. This brings us to Gaspar Noé’s 2019 oddity “Lux Æterna,” which is not a film in the conventional sense but a work-for-hire gone awry — although in Noé’s case,...

As a supporting sponsor of The Overlook Film Festival, we're proud to present a 100th anniversary screening of Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages with a live score by Think Less, Hear More! On top of that, it's been announced that Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon will be the opening night film, the immersive program has been revealed, and there's much more in the latest festival announcement:

(New Orleans, LA) – The Overlook Film Festival is proud to announce its opening night film and second wave of the 2022 festival lineup. These titles join previously announced films and events, including closing night film The Black Phone, for a total of 23 feature films and 25 short films from 16 countries, with 3 World Premieres and 1 North American premiere, along with 10 live events taking place at the Prytania Theatres At Canal Place in New Orleans June 2-5, 2022.

The festival will open with the North American premiere of...

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922 horror classic from Swedian gets re-scored by Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist and operatic singer Alia Synesthesia. A hybrid of documentary and fiction explores the history of witchcraft, demonology and satanism. It shows representations of evil in a variety of ancient and medieval artworks, offers vignettes illustrating a number of superstitious [...]

The post Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922 horror classic get re-scored by operatic singer Alia Synesthesia appeared first on Horror Asylum.

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922 horror classic from Swedian gerts re-scored by Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist and operatic singer Alia Synesthesia. A hybrid of documentary and fiction explores the history of witchcraft, demonology and satanism. It shows representations of evil in a variety of ancient and medieval artworks, offers vignettes illustrating a number of superstitious …

The post Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922 horror classic get re-scored by operatic singer Alia Synesthesia appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Features: Robert Eggers, Lawrence Gordon Clark, Piers Haggard, Alice Lowe, Jonathan Rigby | Written and Directed by Kier-La Janisse

After watching Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror you certainly can’t accuse writer/director Kier-La Janisse (Eurocrime! the Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s) of just skimming the topic’s surface. Book-ended by animated credits sequences and featuring paper collages by Guy Maddin Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a deep dive into the definition and history of folk horror. The film’s three hours and fifteen minutes are split into six chapters that make up three roughly hour-long segments.

The first segment deals with the “Unholy Trinity” of Witchfinder General, The Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man. While it doesn’t deny their influence and importance, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched very quickly dispenses with the idea that they are the root of the genre,...

“Noita” is a video game about death. You’ll die in the usual ways — swarmed by monsters, falling into a pit of lava — and you’ll also die by transforming yourself into a defenseless sheep before being decapitated by a buzzsaw. You’ll drown in a vat of whiskey. You’ll be killed by a ghost of your own character from a prior play session. “Noita” is maddening, rough around the edges, and utterly unforgiving. It’s also rather brilliant.

On the surface, “Noita,” which hails from three-person Finnish indie studio Nolla Games, appears straightforward. “Noita” is a 2D roguelike (die once and you restart at the beginning of the game) action platformer. Every game begins with your character, a faceless purple wizard, standing outside a mineshaft. You have a jetpack, two wands (this game’s version of weapons and tools), and a flask of water or another liquid. Head down into the cave,...

HBO Max is packed with new and classic genre titles this Halloween season. From the new Invisible Man and Doctor Sleep, to The Brood and The Blob, here's a look of what HBO Max is offering as part of their "Halloween is Here" lineup:

Hit horror movies you won’t want to stream alone like The Invisible Man, Us, It: Chapter 2, and Doctor Sleep, creepy cult classics Night of the Living Dead, Eraserhead and Scanners, and psychological thrillers like The Haunting, Glass, and Dolores Claiborne will be available to stream alongside TV series such as Lovecraft Country, True Blood, The Outsider, and Raised by Wolves, and scares for all ages such as Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays, Gremlins 2, Spooky Buddies, and Adventure Time.

In addition, HBO Max is pulling together a collection of Halloween-themed episodes from fan-favorite series like Friends, Euphoria, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Big Bang Theory,...

I don’t know about you, but this writer is more than ready to start looking forward to the Halloween season. And one of the staples of my own ongoing cinematic celebration every year is checking out all the wonderful classic horror movies that Turner Classic Movies airs on their channel. And considering the mess that 2020 has been over the last several months, I thought this year it might be helpful to also include all the genre films that will be playing on TCM throughout the month of September, as it’s never too early to get ready for Halloween.

Check out all the great classic horror movies playing on the small screen over the next two months on TCM, and be sure to set those DVRs so you don’t miss any of the classic films that are sure to get you into the Halloween spirit this year.

Thursday,...

Häxan

Blu ray

Criterion

1922/ 1.33:1 / 105 min.

Starring Benjamin Christensen

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

Fine art joins forces with the dark arts in Häxan, an impeccably crafted docu-drama with the lurid kick of an exploitation film.

The influence of Benjamin Christensen’s silent horror show can be found far and wide, from movies as beloved as The Wizard of Oz and reviled as The Devils. Variety was certainly conflicted when Häxan was turned loose in 1922 – “Wonderful though this picture is, it is absolutely unfit for public exhibition.”

It’s not Intolerance but Häxan boasts both a sizable cast and elaborate settings (at the time it was the most expensive film ever produced in Denmark). Yet the credits suggest it was something of a one man show – Christensen wrote and narrated (his hypnotic glower is the first thing the audience sees) and he acts up a storm – he plays the devil who...

At long last, Criterion has revealed its 1,000th entry to be the ultimate “Godzilla” collection, with all 15 films of the Japanese monster series’ original Showa era films beautifully burnished for the first time. This massive set, with all films digitally restored, ranges from Ishirō Honda’s 1954 original-that-started-it-all “Godzilla” to Honda’s 1975 “Terror of Mechagodzilla,” which was his directorial swan song.

Also featured in the set are such iconic Godzilla face-offs as “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1963), “Mothra vs. Godzilla” (1964), “Godzilla vs. Gigan” (1972), “Godzilla vs. Megalon” (1973) and more.

Criterion promises “a landmark set showcasing the technical wizardry, fantastical storytelling, and indomitable international appeal that established the most iconic giant monster the cinema has ever seen.”

The series has featured its fair share of imitations and reboots over the years, including this year’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” whose director, Michael Dougherty modeled the creature design for his film after the 1954 version...

In the digital era of Wacoms and Photoshop, it is refreshing to see an artist who works nearly exclusively with the unforgiving medium of ink on paper. Coming out of Madrid, Spain, Mörtuus’ creative and original drawings have graced the covers of various zines, websites, and bands all across the globe. Speaking with Daily Dead, Mörtuus gives us a quick look into the macabre mind of the man behind some of the most horrific atmospheric artworks that have ever been put to page.

“I regard myself as a self-taught drawer. I probably learnt more from drawing comics when I was a teen than receiving artistic classes,” Mörtuus reflects. In terms of his artistic influences, he notes “[I was inspired by] the almighty ink masters like Frazetta, Corben, Mignola, Graham Ingels, Michael Whelan, and the Monster Bernie Wrightson, too many to mention, really! [I was also influenced by] the horror gothic novels from Lovecraft (God), Poe, Le Fanu, Mark Riddick,...

(Aotn) Turner Classic Movies is bringing the horror next month. Starting on October 1st the channel will be bringing back movies such as the original Cat People and Dracula. Fan’s of classic movies will surely not want to miss this.

If you have ever wanted to know where the band White Zombie got there name be sure to tune in on Halloween morning at 8:30 Am. The Universal Monster’s are sprinkled throughout this marathon and will hopefully delight old school horror fans.

Complete Schedule Below:

Sunday October 1, 2017

8:00 Pm Dracula (1931) 9:30 Pm Dracula’s Daughter (1936) 11:00 Pm Son Of Dracula (1943)

Monday October 2, 2017

12:30 Am Nosferatu (1922)

Tuesday October 3, 2017

8:00 Pm Frankenstein (1931) 9:30 Pm Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) 11:00 Pm The Mummy (1932)

Wednesday October 4, 2017

12:30 Am The Wolf Man (1941) 2:00 Am Island Of Lost Souls (1933) 3:30 Am The Black Cat (1934) 4:45 Am The Invisible Man (1933)

Sunday October 8, 2017

2:00 Am Night...

With The Witch opening this week, we sat down with writer/director Robert Eggers to do something a little different. We asked him to name the three films that most influenced his tremendous new horror movie and we would discuss his work through the lens of what inspired him. In part one of this series, we talked about Stanley Kubrick’s […]

The post The Influences of ‘The Witch’ Part Two: Director Robert Eggers on ‘Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages’ appeared first on /Film.

Life isn’t easy for witches. Sure, they have magical powers, live for hundreds of years, and can fly around on broomsticks — but it’s not all fun and games. Beyond the stinging social stigma attached to those who witch for a living, there’s also the constant threat of unruly villagers brandishing torches and pitchforks, hungry for a good old-fashioned witch-burning. It’s starkly amusing to recall that the archetypal witch caricature was born out of the cold-blooded, unlawful murder of innocent people, acts committed vainly in the name of religion. On film, the witch is prolific, with countless examples dating back to the dawn of the art form.

When examining the witch film genre, mounting similarities cannot be ignored. Some employ the witch in fairy tales, macabre bedtime stories intended to evoke fear and wonderment in equal measure. Others depict a society gone mad, fingers ever pointed at...

Hell's Kitchen: Soul stew image likely from the 1922 Benjamin Christensen horror classic 'Häxan / Witchcraft Through the Ages.' Day of the Dead post: Cinema's Top Five Scariest Living Dead We should all be eternally grateful to the pagans, who had the foresight to come up with many (most?) of the overworked Western world's religious holidays. Thanks to them, besides Easter, Christmas, New Year's, and possibly Mardi Gras (a holiday in some countries), we also have Halloween, All Saints' Day, and the Day of Dead. The latter two are public holidays in a number of countries with large Catholic populations. Since today marks the end of the annual Halloween / All Saints' Day / Day of the Dead celebrations, I'm posting my revised and expanded list of the movies' Top Five Scariest Living Dead. Of course, by that I don't mean the actors listed below were dead when the movies were made.

Special mention: Häxan

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

Denmark / Sweden, 1922

Genre: Documentary

Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...

Roll up for the best of this year’s Halloween horror cinema, from the Dead & Breakfast all-nighter in Derby to The Exorcist with added ouija board experience in Muswell Hill

To the traditional sounds of Halloween – screams of terror, groans of pain, revving chainsaws, retching in the aisles and the like – come some more tuneful emanations this hallowed eve. Film-plus-live-music events are this season’s must-have, it seems. The perennial Chills In The Chapel, at Islington’s Union Chapel, has been doing this for a while. This year it brings electronic composer and John Carpenter collaborator Alan Howarth to preside over doomful synth accompaniment to Escape From New York (Fri), and a medley of clips from the Halloween franchise (31 Oct). In a similar vein, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin perform their score to a screening of giallo classic Profondo Rosso live for the climax of Sheffield’s gruesomely varied Celluloid Screams horror festival this Sunday.

Scariest movies ever made: The top 100 horror films according to the Chicago Film Critics (photo: Janet Leigh, John Gavin and Vera Miles in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho') I tend to ignore lists featuring the Top 100 Movies (or Top 10 Movies or Top 20 Movies, etc.), no matter the category or criteria, because these lists are almost invariably compiled by people who know little about films beyond mainstream Hollywood stuff released in the last decade or two. But the Chicago Film Critics Association's list of the 100 Scariest Movies Ever Made, which came out in October 2006, does include several oldies — e.g., James Whale's Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein — in addition to, gasp, a handful of non-American horror films such as Dario Argento's Suspiria, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, and F.W. Murnau's brilliant Dracula rip-off Nosferatu. (Check out the full list of the Chicago Film Critics' top 100 horror movies of all time.

It may be more true in horror than in any other genre that certain subgenres ebb and flow in popularity over time. Vampires were hot in the mid-’90s when you had Interview with the Vampire, From Dusk Till Dawn, Blade and the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then, vampires sat out of popular discourse for the next ten years or so, until the double whammy of Twilight and True Blood hitting in 2008, causing a tidal wave of vampiric fiction from the arty (Only Lovers Left Alive, Byzantium) to the schlocky (Dracula Untold, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter) that hasn’t slowed down since.

Witches are now in the middle of an uncertain period, neither in ebb or flow. When Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages was released in 1922, witchcraft and the occult were still deeply feared in modern society. In the decades that followed, interest waned and they became more...

Witches are fantastic cinema fodder – they can portray all of the evil, the nastiness and the spite of being a supernatural villain. This aspect of witchery is seen in films such as The Witches and The Wizard of Oz. Then we have the other side of the coin – supposed ‘witches’ as victims during all of the witch finding perpetrated by various characters like Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General. Witch finding was a terribly cruel and vicious operation in which thousands of people were killed for no good reason other than to satisfy bloodlust and religious zeal.

There are a wide form of films about witches out there. This starts with Benjamin Christensen’s silent movie Häxan, through to the art house with Dreyer’s Day of Wrath. There are a lot of horror films like Mark of the Devil and Mask of Satan that deal with witchcraft up to teen movies like The Craft.

With Arcade Fire launching the live stream for their new album Reflektor against clips from Marcel Camus' "Black Orpheus," it was only a matter of time before someone else decided to match up the Montreal band's music with more classic films. And Craig J. Clark has done just that. This unofficial video for the band's "Joan Of Arc" cuts it against scenes from a trio of movies: "The Passion of Joan of Arc" directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer; "Jeanne d'Arc," directed by Georges Méliès; and "Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages," directed by Benjamin Christensen.  The result? Well, you'll just have to watch it down below and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section. As for the band, they'll be hitting an arena near you in 2014.

Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. I am including documentaries, short films and mini series, only as special mentions – along with a few features that can qualify as horror, but barely do.

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Special Mention:

Häxan

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

Denmark / Sweden, 1922

Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft,...

Looking for suggestions of what to watch this Halloween night? Well, the Internet Movie Database may just have the exact recipe you're looking for to add a heaping helping of spooky to your evening!

1. Hellraiser

"Not long after the Rubik's cube was introduced to Americans came this tale of a different kind of puzzle box, the kind you really don't want to solve...or open. While the creepy Cenobites promise their victims eternity in a world of pleasure, pain and suffering, we only get see the pain and suffering part of that guarantee, underscored by the demon Pinhead's assurance that, in his words, "We'll Tear Your Soul Apaaaaart."

2. "The X-Files" episode "Home"

"There are many episodes of "The X-Files" that will keep a person up at night, but "Home" took the show's queasiness factor to new levels of ickiness by liberally playing with the horror trope of backwoods murderous maniacs.

It's that time of year again, when ghouls gibber and false widow spiders bite and things go bump in the night. Some spooky things are set to scare cinema audiences too, so we're bringing you a round-up of ghostly-goings-on you might want to investigate more closely.

Belfast

31 Oct - Odyssey Cinema - The Exorcist and John Carpenter's Halloween.

Birmingham

31 Oct - Nosferatu (1922) silent film special with live organ accompaniment in the Town Hall.

Cardiff

29 Oct - Cardiff Castle - Dracula.

Derby

31 Oct - the Quad - Halloween.

Edinburgh

29 Oct - the Cameo - spooky film quiz.

31 Oct - the Cameo - live broadcast of Frankenstein.

Glasgow

2 Nov - Frightfest Glasgow, Gft, including Mark Of The Devil, Discopath, Nothing Left To Fear, The Station and Patrick. 3 Nov - Gothic at the Gft - Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922).

Inverness

31 Oct - Vue Cinema - The Exorcist

Leeds

31 Oct to 3 Nov - Gothic.

It's like the Charmed years of the 1990s, as TV shows, books and films focus on magic, the supernatural and all things wiccan

When Ryan Murphy, the creator of American Horror Story, announced that the third season of the American TV series would focus on witches, he was riding the crest of a wave. Not since the 1990s – the era of Buffy's geek goddess, Willow Rosenberg, and a scowling Fairuza Balk in The Craft – have witches been so much in demand.

In the young-adult section of bookshops, shelves that recently groaned under the weight of tales of tormented vampires and lovelorn werewolves, are now stuffed with stories of witchcraft and magic, from Ruth Warburton's much-praised Winter Trilogy to Jessica Spotswood's Cahill Witch Chronicles. Lower down the age range, last month the most recent in Jill Murphy's long-running Worst Witch series was published, while among the predictions for this Christmas's...