One reason Hagazussa resonates so deeply with folk horror fans is its historical accuracy regarding the Alp (or Mare). In Germanic folklore, the Druden or Schratt were spirits that sat on the chest of sleepers, causing nightmares.
The film hints that Albrun’s mother was killed by the Mare—a supernatural pressure. Historically, women who lived alone in the Alpine regions between the 14th and 16th centuries were often accused of being Schratten (shape-shifting hags). They were blamed for milk going sour (seen in the film), livestock dying, and sudden infant death syndrome.
Unlike the sensational witch trials of Germany or Salem, Alpine witch lore was less about the Devil and more about resentment. Villagers hated the Hagazussa because she represented self-sufficiency. She did not need the church. She did not need the harvest cooperative. She survived in the high pastures where winter could kill you in hours. Her crime was surviving alone. Her punishment was being erased.
In the shadow of the Alps, where the mist clings to the peat bogs like a shroud, lies the world of Hagazussa. Unlike the jump-scares and gore of mainstream horror, this Austrian film, written and directed by Lukas Feigelfeld, offers something far more unsettling: a slow, beautiful, and utterly relentless descent into madness, ostracism, and the terrifying ambiguity of witchcraft.
If you are a fan of The Witch (2015) but wished it were slower, more atmospheric, and bleaker, Hagazussa is your next obsession.
Hagazussa is a "meditative nightmare." It is a film about the terror of being alone and the cruelty of human prejudice.
Hagazussa (full title Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse) is widely considered a solid feature, particularly within the folk horror and slow-burn arthouse horror circles. Here’s a breakdown of why it earns that reputation, along with its potential drawbacks.
Before discussing the film, we must understand the word itself. Hagazussa is an Old High German term. While the modern German word for witch is Hexe, Hagazussa (or Hagzissa) is a linguistic ancestor with a much darker connotation.
It breaks down into two parts: Hag (meaning "hedge" or "enclosure") and Zussa (related to "sitting" or "spirit"). Put together, Hagazussa does not simply mean "magic user." It literally translates to "the one who sits on the hedge."
In pre-Christian Germanic and Celtic traditions, the hedge represented the boundary between the civilized world (the village, the home, the church) and the untamed wilderness (the forest, the mountain, the spirit world). A Hagazussa was a liminal being—a woman who straddled the line between life and death, sanity and madness, humanity and animal.
Unlike the stereotypical broom-flying witch of the Renaissance, the Hagazussa is closer to the classical "shaman" or "night-hag." She is a creature of solitude, plague, and raw nature. This distinction is vital to understanding the 2017 film, because Feigelfeld does not make a movie about Satanic pacts or black magic spells. He makes a movie about a lonely woman dissolving into the landscape.
If you search for Hagazussa, you will quickly notice a common reaction: "It is slow." This is an understatement. Feigelfeld studied under Michael Haneke (director of Funny Games), and it shows. The pacing is glacial. Shots last for minutes at a time.
Cinematographer Mariel Baqueiro shoots the Austrian Alps as a character of sublime cruelty. The fog does not look mystical; it looks suffocating. The color palette is drained of warmth—muted grays, diseased greens, and the muddy brown of thawing corpses. Unlike The Witch, which is meticulously lit to look like a Dutch painting, Hagazussa looks like a medieval woodcut: flat, brutal, and crude.
The sound design is equally punishing. Composer MMMD (a drone metal project) supplies a score of rumbling bass frequencies, distorted chants, and the sound of a woman breathing heavily into a metallic bucket. There is no melody. There is only vibration and menace. Watching Hagazussa with headphones is a physical endurance test.
The film follows Albrun (played by Aleksandra Cwen), a young woman living in isolation in the mountains during the Middle Ages. The narrative is loosely divided into chapters:
The Core Question: The movie asks the viewer to decide if Albrun is a victim of her circumstances and mental illness, or if she is actually transforming into the mythical "Hagazussa" (a figure from Alpine folklore similar to a hag or forest spirit).
