Hagazussa

Hagazussa
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lukas Feigelfeld
Written by	Lukas Feigelfeld
Produced by	Lukas Feigelfeld Simon Lubinski
Starring	Aleksandra Cwen Celina Peter Claudia Martini Tanja Petrovsky Haymon Maria Buttinger
Cinematography	Mariel Baqueiro
Edited by	Jorg Volkmar
Music by	MMMD
Production companies	Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin Retina Fabrik
Distributed by	Forgotten Film Entertainment
Release dates	September 22, 2017 (2017-09-22) (Fantastic Fest) May 17, 2018 (2018-05-17) (Germany)
Running time	102 minutes
Countries	Germany Austria
Language	German

Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse (Template:Lang-de, an Old High German term for "Witch") is a 2017 horror film written and directed by Lukas Feigelfeld in his feature directorial debut, and produced by Feigelfeld and Simon Lubinski. The film takes place in a remote mountain village in the 15th-century Alps, and follows Aleksandra Cwen as Albrun, a goatherd shunned by her fellow townspeople who finds herself in an uneasy friendship with a local villager.

The film, an international co-production between Germany and Austria, premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas on 22 September 2017, and received a wide release in Germany on 17 May 2018.

Plot

A young girl named Albrun lives with her goat-herding mother in the Alps of the 15th century. The story begins in winter with Albrun going sledding among other children from town, but is obviously isolated from the group. The mother tries to be merry as she comes to pick her up, and begins their journey back to their one-room cottage, deep within the woods, climbing the steep mountain hills thick with snow. Partway home, the mother pauses as if something is not quite right, then continues onward. When they're at home that night, men disguised in goat skins and horns come to the cottage to bang on the door, call them witches, and say they should be burned.

Later, the mother has taken ill and is visited by a doctor and nun from town. While trying to help it is revealed that she has bulbous growths over her skin, and considering her too far gone, they leave. Albrun is left alone to tend to her mother, who, over time, behaves increasingly strangely. The mother eventually wanders out of the cottage into the winter night. In the morning, Albrun finds her mother's dead body near a stagnant pond in the wood with snakes covering her body.

15 years later, Albrun still lives in the same cottage and is a mother to an infant girl. Albrun spends her time tending her goats in the hills, milking them, and sometimes displays an intimacy with them while she masturbates.

Albrun carries goat milk to town to sell but is confronted by some unruly boys who treat her as the town pariah, the harassment only interrupted by a townswoman, Swinda, who was passing by. Swinda treats Albrun kindly, and comes by Albrun's cottage to say that the parson would like to speak to her and offers to walk with her to town. The conversation along the way is awkward, as Albrun is unused to polite interaction.

The local church is an ossuary, with walls lined with skulls and other bones. She meets the parson, who beckons her to approach as to inspects her countenance. He turns and pauses to reflect, then tells her that he came there to bring faith in the church to people like her who have a difficult life. He says however, that she is isolated and estranged from the group and this path has often led others to a temptation that springs from sacrilege. As he hands Albrun her mother's polished skull painted with flowers and greenery, he concludes, "To strengthen the faith of a religious community, it requires all sacrilege be cleansed." Albrun then takes her mother's skull home and places it in a corner of her cottage.

In her seclusion, impressed by the parson's admonitions, Albrun hears voices from the woods, including those of her mothers. The strange sounds continue but she starts to masturbates in her cottage regardless. The next day, her infant refuses her nipple.

Later, Swinda takes her walking out on the scenic mountain slopes and says with affection "We really do have a nice spot here in our mountains. We don't have to be afraid here." Albrun asks what they should be afraid of to which Swinda replies, "Of those who don't carry God in their hearts. The Jews and the heathens. They come in the night and like animals they take you. And then some months later you bear a child." This causes Albrun to become uneasy around Swinda. On the way down the mountain, Swinda talks a local man into walking with them on the mountainside, who, after Swinda whispers something to the man, turns to Albrun and gives her an affectionate embrace. Swinda then grabs Albrun by her shoulders and takes her to the ground and whispers "It's disgusting how you all smell, your rotten stench." The man then begins raping Albrun as Swinda holds her down. After the rape, she returns home and finds that her goat herd has been stolen except for one, which has been butchered and mutilated on the spot, leaving only the hanging head and partial carcass left behind.

Furious at her mistreatment, Albrun brings a dead rat to the local water source to poison the water, and then relieves her bowels into it. Later when Albrun comes to town while holding her child, she sees many dead bodies are being transported away. On the way home, she stops in the wood and eats a mushroom, which causes hallucinations and psychosis. In the midst of this, she walks into the stagnant pond with her infant, letting it drown. She sinks under the murky water with her eyes open.

In her cabin later, as Albrun sleeps a snake travels over her body. As she wakes and ignores the snake, she hears her mother calling her name. She rises and approaches the fireplace, her mother's skull illuminated by a lit candle, hearing her mother's labored breathing. She then discovers the body of her drowned baby, which she carried home with her but can't seem to remember, causing Albrun to be seized with grief and horror. She notices a soup already boiling on the fire, and places the infant into the boiling liquid, and next, with shaking hands, she eats from it. She soon vomits violently, and screams in horror as the psychosis she experienced from eating one mushroom has returned, but this time has amplified greatly. She sees her mother, hears laughing, the shadows on the walls seem to move menacingly, causing her to flee the cottage.

In the dusky morning light, now with opaque eyes, Albrun lies down and dies on the scenic mountaintop. Her body combusts with the rising sun.

Cast

• Aleksandra Cwen as Albrun
  • Celina Peter as Young Albrun
• Claudia Martini as Mutter
• Tanja Petrovsky as Swinda
• Haymon Maria Buttinger as Dorfpfarrer
• Franz Stadler as Sepp
• Killian Abeltshauser as Farmer
• Gerdi Marlen Simonn as Baby Martha
• Thomas Petruo as Doctor
• Judith Geerts as Nun

Production

Feigelfeld wrote, directed, and co-produced Hagazussa as his film school graduation project, partially financing it with crowdfunding donations. According to Feigelfeld:

"After researching about old pagan beliefs and folklore about witches, that were supposed to roam the mountain woods in those times, my interest was to develop a character that these folk tales would have branded as a witch, but to dig deeper into her psyche and see her as the traumatized, mistreated and finally delusional person that society constructed. As well as to understand what utterly evil things people were lead to do while suffering from psychosis in the Middle Ages and being surrounded by superstition and religious prosecution. The film tries to depict a very personal and empathetic mental image of a nightmarish and sick mind."

The music for the film was composed by Greek dark ambient duo MMMD.

Release

Hagazussa premiered in Austin, Texas at Fantastic Fest on 22 September 2017. The film toured the international film festival circuit that year, screening at such events as BFI London Film Festival and the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. It received a wide release in Germany on 17 May 2018, and later received a limited release in the United States on 19 April 2019 through distribution by Music Box Films's genre subsidiary Doppelgänger.

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Hagazussa holds an approval rating of 95%, based on 20 reviews, and an average rating of 7.8/10. Its consensus reads, "Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse weaves a spooky supernatural story that should satisfy horror fans with more adventurous inclinations." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "spooky, stylish, spellbinding debut", writing that "even if the open-ended story does not satisfy conventional genre rules, Hagazussa works very well as a spellbinding audiovisual symphony". Phil Nobile Jr., writing for Birth.Movies.Death., wrote "Visually stunning and narratively assured, [Hagazussa] presents its horror as the slowest of burns, its ambiguous, stark presentation of the supernatural eventually giving way to tangible, colorful revulsion". Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting wrote that "Hagazussa is Germany's answer to The Witch that has stunning atmosphere mixed with brooding terror from start to finish". Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "for those who can embrace “Hagazussa” more as an experience than as a spook show, this film is utterly absorbing and hard to shake".

Dennis Harvey of Variety called the film "gorgeously unsettling", writing that "this enigmatic folktale-cum-horror is likely to flummox or even exasperate mainstream genre fans with its sparse plotting, slow pace, and near-impenetrable mysteries. But its mix of the poetical, repugnant, and phantasmagorical will weave a singular spell for more adventuresome, arthouse-friendly viewers". Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film 2 1/2 out of 5 stars, praising Feigelfeld's "precise vision" and Cwen's "intense performance", but calling the film "atmospheric and muted ... Those are noble values for a horror movie, but it's a shame they’ve lead to a frustrating genre pic that's just too dreary to be scary".

External links

• Hagazussa at IMDb
• Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse at Rotten Tomatoes