Directed by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov • 1967 • Soviet Union
Starring Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Vadim Zakharchenko
In nineteenth-century Ukraine, a seminary student (Leonid Kuravlyov) is forced to spend three nights with the corpse of a beautiful young witch (Natalya Varley). But when she rises from the dead to seduce him, it will summon a nightmare of fear, desire, and demonic mayhem. Bursting with startling imagery and stunning practical effects, this sinister fairytale—adapted from a novella by Nikolai Gogol—was one of the few horror films produced in the Soviet Union, and it remains an experience unlike any other.
Up Next in Witches
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Alison’s Birthday
Directed by Ian Coughlan • 1981 • Australia
Starring Joanne Samuel, Bunney Brooke, Lou BrownSomething like an Australian answer to ROSEMARY’S BABY, this satanic-panic shocker remains one of the most chilling—and criminally underseen—Ozploitation outings of the 1980s. When a Ouija board séance w...
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The Girl on the Broomstick
Directed by Václav Vorlíček • 1972 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Petra Černocká, Jan Hrušínský, Jan KrausIn this charming Czechoslovak fantasy, irrepressible teenage witch Saxana (Petra Černocká)—facing three hundred years of detention at her sorcery academy—casts a spell that transports her to the...
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Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen • 1922 • Denmark
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-o...
