Häxan (Danish title: Heksen; English title: The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 Swedish/Danish Silent film horror film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Based partly on Christensen's study of the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century German guide for inquisition, Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts.