“WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES “
Narrated by William Burroughs
SCREENS AT ODDBALL FILMS
Curator/Author Jack Stevenson in person!
On Saturday, September 30th at 10:00PM Oddball Films as part of an “Evening of Sex, Drugs and Witchcraft” presents it’s second program “Witchcraft Through the Ages”, directed by obsessive Danish director Benjamen Christensen in 1922 and “recreated” by legendary beatnik Anthony Balch in 1967. This reedited “sound” version features a interpretive narration by William Burroughs and a experimental jazz soundtrack by Jean-Luc Ponty and Daniel Humair. In addition curator Jack Stevenson author of the newly published book “Witchcraft Through the Ages, The Story of Haxan, The World’s Strangest Film And The Man Who Made It” (FAB Press) will be on hand to introduce the film, discuss its strange history and sign books.

Admission is $10.00. RSVPs preferred. Reserve at

or call 415-558-8117.
The original macabre 1922 masterpiece stands as the most extreme and
controversial work of silent cinema - and one of the most visionary. A
perennially revived cult favorite it was a work of obsession created in
mysterious circumstances by its Danish director Benjamin Christensen. One of the strangest and most bizarre films ever made, it is a supposed documentary on devil worship and superstitions through the ages.

The film includes dramatic re-creations of "real" incidents of witches,
satanic worship and rituals and various acts of sacrilege and perversion
that shocked 1922 audiences at the time the movie originally appeared.
Ostensibly beginning as a documentary, “Witchcraft Through the Ages” begin with woodcuts and period recreations to depict the rise of witchcraft in medieval times, where demons were said to roam the land and interfere with the lives of peasants. Through a series of vignettes we see the interactio of clergy and witches, with the priests either persecuting their satanic foes, suffering from the onslaught of demonic forces, or even complying with the supernatural agents. Witch hunting is depicted in an unflattering light not unlike Carl Dreyer's later Day of Wrath, and even Satan himself makes a cameo with the director made up in an elaborate, terrifying facsimile of a woodcut monster. Nocturnal witches' sabbaths, meals made of toads and children, and other unsavory elements are depicted for the viewer's edification before a truly bizarre finale which makes analogies between witchcraft and modern day technology.

A difficult film to describe, “Witchcraft Through the Ages” flows along like
a waking dream. Alternating between hallucinatory nightmare, black humor, and straight faced documentation, the film is never less than visually stunning and contains more imaginative visuals than any ten Hollywood blockbusters combined. Christensen would later make a brief, unspectacular move to America, where his most famous English speaking work remains the rare, highly sought after “Seven Footprints to Satan”, before returning to Denmark to finish out his career.
With naked witches dancing with devils, a baby that is thrown into a hot
pot, women standing in a queue, wanting to kiss the devil's naked ass,
flying broomsticks and hysterical nuns this jazzed up cut down version of
Christensen’s original is a nightmare to behold indeed.
Plus! Eclectic 70s film short “The Occult: Echo From Darkness” .

About JACK STEVENSON:
Jack Stevenson is the author of over a dozen books and articles including
“Addicted: The Myth and Menace of Drugs in Film”, ”Fleshpot: Cinema’s
Mythmakers and Taboo Breakers”, “Dogme Uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas
Vinterberg, and the Gang That Took on Hollywood” The Jukebox That Ate the
Cocktail Lounge: The Story of the Scopitone”, “Of Celluloid and Slime”, “The
Secret History of Cult Movies” and many, many more.
Jack Lives in Copenhagen and tours Europe frequently screening his offbeat
film programs.