Haxan (1922)

Starring Maren Pedersen, Clara Pontoppidan, Elith Pio, Oscar Stribolt, Tora Teje
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

This documentary traces the origins of witches through historical texts and illustrations, and presents new filmed sequences portraying their secret rituals and the horrors they suffered when put on trial.

Although this silent film from Denmark starts out more or less a straight documentary, once director Christensen lets his camera and actors take over, it becomes a highly stylized horror film, with dark and daring imagery and quality makeups for the denizens of hell, none more impressive than the horned, clawed devil, portrayed by Christensen himself.  The film's closing sequence in which Christensen compares the witches of yesteryear to the women of 1922 is probably the weakest in the film, but his filming of a witch's trial from initial suspicions against her to her forced confession makes for powerful cinema at its best.