Horror film fans must acknowledge a Danish director whom contributed mightily to the themes, look and feel to today's fright movies. Beside his 1922 "Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages," cinematic aficionados are unfamiliar with Denmark Benjamin Christensen's body of work, especially his early films. But the actor-turned-film director invented the horror/crime aesthetics in film that is so familiarly seen in modern motion pictures.
As a stage actor, Christensen focused on being a wine salesman before introduced to cinema as an actor in front of the camera in 1911. His resources were great enough that he took control over a small Danish movie production company and personally directed his first film, 1914's "The Mysterious X." Two years later he's directing another "innocent man accused of a crime" movie, September 1916's "Blind Justice." Both films showed a remarkable sophistication in movie-making: his shot composition, camera movement, and ominous shadow lighting created numerous sequences filled with heart-throbbing, knee-buckling tension on the screen. Film historians see Christensen's first two films as one of the most astonishing directorial debuts in movie history.
"Blind Justice" contains one of the first, if not the first fake jump scare sequences on film where viewers are jolted by a sudden movement, only to prove to the audience that everything's just innocent. Check out the 18 minute mark of "Blind Justice" in which Christensen positions his camera looking through a keyhole, then progressing to a silhouetted figure climbing through a window. Later on towards the movie's exciting conclusion, Christensen uses a unique jolting effect where he has the attacker suddenly jump invisibly from the side of the frame onto his victim. This quick appearance of a potential killer is seen in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Pyscho" and John Carpenter's 1978 "Halloween," among in countless of other horror films.
Christensen, who played the wronged-killer in "Blind Justice," saw his work failing to gain an audience in Denmark during World War One, when his two movies were released. He returned to stage acting since it proved more lucrative than producing movies at that time. After the war, he spent three years researching about witchcraft, resulting in his 1922 classic.
As a stage actor, Christensen focused on being a wine salesman before introduced to cinema as an actor in front of the camera in 1911. His resources were great enough that he took control over a small Danish movie production company and personally directed his first film, 1914's "The Mysterious X." Two years later he's directing another "innocent man accused of a crime" movie, September 1916's "Blind Justice." Both films showed a remarkable sophistication in movie-making: his shot composition, camera movement, and ominous shadow lighting created numerous sequences filled with heart-throbbing, knee-buckling tension on the screen. Film historians see Christensen's first two films as one of the most astonishing directorial debuts in movie history.
"Blind Justice" contains one of the first, if not the first fake jump scare sequences on film where viewers are jolted by a sudden movement, only to prove to the audience that everything's just innocent. Check out the 18 minute mark of "Blind Justice" in which Christensen positions his camera looking through a keyhole, then progressing to a silhouetted figure climbing through a window. Later on towards the movie's exciting conclusion, Christensen uses a unique jolting effect where he has the attacker suddenly jump invisibly from the side of the frame onto his victim. This quick appearance of a potential killer is seen in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Pyscho" and John Carpenter's 1978 "Halloween," among in countless of other horror films.
Christensen, who played the wronged-killer in "Blind Justice," saw his work failing to gain an audience in Denmark during World War One, when his two movies were released. He returned to stage acting since it proved more lucrative than producing movies at that time. After the war, he spent three years researching about witchcraft, resulting in his 1922 classic.