The following movie is actually just one segment from a silent film from 1922. Somebody added the soundtrack, a Satanic prayer. The film, named Haxan (The Witches), by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen, was in fact a documentary based on Christensen's study of Malleus Maleficarum, which in the fifteenth century was a respected study of witches used by witch hunters and inquisitors. Christensen wanted to make a film which he hoped would explain the mythology behind witchcraft, and how the beliefs and legends grew over the centuries.
The following clip from the film is a dramatization of Christensen's vision, not of what he believed actually happened, but of what people genuinely believed, and feared, as he saw it.
Not surprisingly, the film was banned in the US and was heavily censored in much of Europe. Nevertheless, it has become recognized as one of the great cinematic achievements of the early film era.
