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Movies that feel like Häxan (1922)

If you loved Häxan, the closest films we have are The Phantom of the Opera (1925), White Zombie (1932) and Forbidden Empire (2014). All three share Häxan's dread and unsettling feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 7 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Peacock Premium and others, checked against today's data.

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.

🍅 93% Rotten Tomatoes7.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Benjamin Christensendreadunsettlingepic
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If Häxan hit the spot, these will too

The Phantom of the Opera poster
The Phantom of the Opera
1925 · dir. Rupert Julian
🍅 90%7.5horror

Both keep coming back to the same thing: black and white

The difference: Missing the scale of Häxan

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

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White Zombie poster
White Zombie
1932 · dir. Victor Halperin
🍅 77%6.2horror

Common ground: black and white

A wealthy landowner living in Haiti convinces a sorcerer to lure the woman he has fallen for away from her fiancé. The madman later betrays their agreement by keeping the woman for himself…as a zombie.

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Forbidden Empire poster
Forbidden Empire
2014 · dir. Oleg Stepchenko
5.2thriller · adventure · mystery

Two things both keep coming back to: mystic and demon

The difference: Sits closer to thriller than Häxan does

Early 18th century. Cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassible woods. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world.

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Dracula poster
Dracula
1931 · dir. Tod Browning
🍅 96%7.3horror

One thread runs through both: superstition

A British estate agent travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a London castle. After Dracula enslaves the agent and drives him to insanity, the pair return to London together, where Dracula, a secret bloodsucker, begins preying on socialites.

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The Most Dangerous Game poster
The Most Dangerous Game
1932 · dir. Irving Pichel
🍅 100%7.1thriller · adventure · horror

The same mix in both: dread, then unease

When legendary hunter Bob Rainsford is shipwrecked on the perilous reefs surrounding a mysterious island, he finds himself the guest of the reclusive and eccentric Count Zaroff. While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter.

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Onibaba poster
Onibaba
1964 · dir. Kaneto Shindō
🍅 90%7.8horror

Both are built on the same subject: demon

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

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The Haunting poster
The Haunting
1963 · dir. Robert Wise
🍅 87%7.4horror

The same preoccupation in both: insanity

Dr. John Markway recruits three strangers for a sleep-disorder study at the eerie and isolated Hill House. It soon becomes clear his real interest lies in the mansion itself and its sinister history, as they are forced to confront the nature of its horror…

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The Invisible Man poster
The Invisible Man
1933 · dir. James Whale
🍅 95%7.6horror · science fiction

Both keep coming back to the same thing: insanity

After experimenting on himself and becoming invisible, scientist Jack Griffin, now aggressive due to the drug's effects, seeks a way to reverse the experiment at any cost.

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King Kong poster
King Kong
1933 · dir. Merian C. Cooper
🍅 97%7.9adventure · fantasy · horror

Epic horror, and it commits to that

Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to be displayed on Broadway as King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.

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The Black Cat poster
The Black Cat
1934 · dir. Edgar G. Ulmer
🍅 89%6.9horror · thriller

Documentary with a pulse of dread, in both cases

After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde poster
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1931 · dir. Rouben Mamoulian
🍅 91%7.6horror · science fiction · drama

History built on unease, twice over

Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men: one that is good and one that is evil. He believes that by separating the two, man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug, it is already too late.

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Island of Lost Souls poster
Island of Lost Souls
1932 · dir. Erle C. Kenton
🍅 88%7.4science fiction · horror

Both lean on dread more than on horror

An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations.

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The best-reviewed films that share Häxan’s defining feeling.