Certificate:
I went into this film expecting a lot. I'd read great things about it. I enjoyed some of the stills I'd seen and became all excited with the concept.
Maybe this is the reason I found the film less than great, it’s not a terrible piece of cinema. It just didn't live up to my ideas on the subject matter.
On the surface it’s a documentary and that’s about it. It has a little fiction thrown in and is not bad, it lacks, however, character, drama and Mysticism.
The imagery and animation? I liked it... I really liked it. Other than the witches' flight, (that still has its charms) it holds up well. Not bad for a film that’s almost 90 years old!
The Devil is shown in many forms throughout the film, making for some of the best scenes.
The idea that most captivated me was the way he (or it or whatever) was shown controlling and driving people to insanity. This was then shown in relevance to (the then) modern times. With the way hysteria within women could be perceived as the work of Satan.
This brings me to my conclusive thought.
This should be remade now. Not because of the technology but of the progression in storytelling. It could be made as a Documentary/Psychological Thriller not the Documentary/horror it tried to be. That is where the film would be best conceived, for it’s not in the imagery I found fear but in the ideas that lay imbedded throughout the course of the film.
3/5
