Witchcraft Through the Ages

Lost 1928 film by Benjamin Benjamin Christensen

House of Horror is a 1929 American comedy-horror mystery film directed by Benjamin Christensen. The film stars Louise Fazenda and Chester Conklin and was released in both a silent and sound version which featured a Vitaphone soundtrack with talking sequences, music and sound effects. Both the silent and sound versions of House of Horror are now presumed lost.

It centers on the character Helene Hannøe, an attorney who forms close relationships with her troubled clients while trying to solve their problems.

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

Four heirs to a family fortune are summoned to appear at the family estate for the reading of the will, where they meet the estate's staff, which includes a nurse, a crazed doctor, and a sinister handyman.

There is hunger in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. One day while dim-witted peasant Sergei is searching corpses for food, he meets a young woman looking for the town of Novokursk. She asks Sergei to help her get there, and to tell anyone they might meet that he is her husband.

In 1913, Carl is released from prison, where he served a sentence for stealing. Spurned by his circumstance, Carl rejects God and resumes his fast life of crime. Before long, his fate intersects with that of Mary, a devout orphan, prompting a romance and a reevaluation.

Not long before marine officer van Hauen goes off to war and heavy-heartedly leaves his family, he coincidentally discovers that his wife has a secret liaison with the dubious Count Spinelli. What the van Hauens do not yet know, is that the sleazy Spinelli has a hidden agenda. (stumfilm.dk)

The action begins one early summer morning in a hostel, where we see, among others, two young girls, a law student, Ruth, and a small office lady, Ilse. From their conversation, we understand that Ilse has a very bourgeois outlook on life. By chance, these two girls come across one of Ruth's fellow students, Pontus Berthelsen, who is spending the summer holidays in a fisherman's cabin. Ilse, who has little world experience, quickly takes an interest in Pontus, who possesses a lot of innate charm. Pontus does his best to conquer Ilse, but her bourgeois attitude means - at first - that she does not fall for his rather deft approaches.

A mature and visually elegant period romance that remains one of the earliest and most compassionate overtly gay-themed films in movie history. Based upon Herman Bang's 1902 novel, Dreyer's Michael refashions the classical Greek myth of Jupiter and Ganymede into a love triangle between an aging artist, Zoret, his protagonist Michael, and Princess Zamikoff, an aristocratic femme fatale as entranced by Michael’s youthful beauty as Zoret is.

Before a planned African expedition, a man's fiancée worries her father's guest plans to steal one of her father's rubies. The couple are kidnapped and held prisoner at a mysterious, creepy house. Strange things are afoot at Satan's house.

On New Year's Eve, the convicted murderer, Strong Henry, escapes from prison and collects his son from the orphanage. When he breaks into a local manor to get some milk for his child, he is surprised by a young woman, Eva. Out of pity, she decides to help the stranger, but unfortunately some of the manor's other occupants wake up and call the police. Fourteen years later, Henry is released from prison. Convinced that Eva betrayed him, he sets out to take revenge and find his son.

A war blind painter marries his nurse. But after he can see again through an operation, he does not recognize her. Then she decides to leave him in order to return to his service under a different name. Only when the painter falls in love with her as a stranger to him, she reveal herself.

We are in New York. A young Danish girl has a conversation with the Danish-American Mr. Lang. It is understood that she loves his son and that he has sent the young man to London because he thinks they are both too young. Furthermore, it is clear from the conversation that he is about to file for divorce. The young girl is worried about how his little daughter will fare - despite her youth, she has had bitter experiences herself, and she tells Mr. Lang her story.

On a volcanic island near the Kingdom of Hetvia rules Count Dakkar, a benevolent leader and scientist who has eliminated class distinction among the island's inhabitants. Dakkar, his sister Sonia and her fiance, engineer Nicolai Roget have designed a submarine which Roget pilots on its initial voyage just before the island is overrun by Baron Falon, despotic ruler of Hetvia. Falon sets out after Roget in a second submarine and the two craft, diving to the ocean's floor, discover a strange land populated by dragons, giant squid and an eerie undiscovered humanoid race.

During World War I, the engineer Torben returns home with secret papers from the Russian Tsar to the courier Tuschin, Torben's best friend. Tuschin is found murdered, however, and to solve the murder, Torben stays at his hotel. Here he meets several mysterious people, not least the breathtaking stenographer Inge. But in the hotel, no one is who they pretend to be.