Come to the Sabbat

Film history is a little bit like a haunted house, a movie makes one wrong move and it can end up lost for decades. Take the Danish obscurity Haxan, made in the early nineteen twenties, by mad auteur Benjamin Christenson; the film explores the role of witchcraft and devil worship throughout the centuries. When compared to the arty nature of early German expressionism though, the film was deemed a semi-pornographic curio and was promptly consigned to the trash heap of cinema. Over four decades later three men set about re-editing and re-scoring the film, they were British avant-gardist Antony Balch, French jazz player Daniel Humair and the third was writer, poet, occultist and world famous smack addict William S. Burroughs. It was this most unusual of films that I found myself watching on all hallows eve.
Shot like a documentary the film doesn’t really have much of plot, it’s more a series of odd dramatisations held together by Burroughs creepy narration. The first thing that grabs you about the film is Humair’s score, a manic session of avant-jazz more in line with a French New Wave film than early gothic cinema. The score adds a kind inappropriate humour to the film, for example watching a coven dancing round the fire at the sabbat is somehow less scary when they’re accompanied by bossa nova drums and a great horn section.
Burroughs musings, which overlay most of the action, aren’t just window dressing. His narration is loaded with implied cynicism and sarcasm. When describing the methods of torture used on witches he seems to be laughing at them (either because of the rampant stupidity involved or because of his own rampant misogyny). He was however a devout follower of the left hand path, thus giving the film some authoritive clout, as well as beat generation cool.
Say what you like about the implanted counter cultural chic of the late 60’s cut, there is one thing that means this film (and its myriad other cuts) should be regarded as a cinematic trailblazer, its visuals. Say what you like about Christenson (and many people have over the years) he was a great director and one of the early pioneers of visual effects. There is a moment in the film when a small stop-motion demon eats its way through a door which is still shit-your-pants scary after 87 years, that’s no mean feat. The film is awash with moments like this, covens of witches riding broomsticks through the night, satanic orgies, and the rather grim witch trials thmselves.
Haxan is the perfect stoned Halloween movie, complete with trippy visuals and an underlying sense of menace.