Movies Like Maleficarum

Cautio Criminalis

1974

While the Wolf's Away

2017

A young teen and his misfit group of friends try to escape from a strict boarding school that holds dangerous secrets.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

2021

An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.

The Devils

1971

A charismatic 17th-century French priest becomes the target of a sexually obsessed nun’s witchcraft accusations, which corrupt church and state officials are all too happy to exploit.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Magician

1958

A traveling magician and his troupe arrive in a Swedish town in the 1840s, where their act is scrutinized by local authorities and a skeptical medical official. Their stay leads to a series of confrontations that test the boundaries between performance, belief, and deception.

The Red Virgin

2024

Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.

The Juniper Tree

1990

Margit and her older sister Katla flee for safety after their mother is burned to death for witchcraft. Finding shelter with Johan and his resentful young son, Jonas, the sisters help form an impromptu family unit that’s soon strained by Katla’s burgeoning sorcery.

The Craft

1996

A Catholic school newcomer falls in with a clique of teen witches who wield their powers against all who dare to cross them -- be they teachers, rivals or meddlesome parents.

Witch Hunt

2021

In a modern America where witches are real and witchcraft is illegal, a sheltered teenager must face her own demons and prejudices as she helps two young witches avoid law enforcement and cross the southern border to asylum in Mexico.

Sabbath

1991

A dream-like version of the Sabbath in the Middle Ages: one night at full moon, the women leave home to meet with the devil in the woods. Several orgiastic ceremonies later, they all return home at cockcrow. All except for one, the youngest, who is under an evil spell.

Savaged

2014

After thugs brutalize a deaf-mute woman, the spirit of an Apache warrior takes over her lifeless body and sets out on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge.

Witchfinder General

1968

England, 1645. The cruel civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians that is ravaging the country causes an era of chaos and legal arbitrariness that allows unscrupulous men to profit by exploiting the absurd superstitions of the peasants; like Matthew Hopkins, a monster disguised as a man who wanders from town to town offering his services as a witch hunter.

The Reckoning

2021

In the aftermath of the Great Plague and amidst the subsequent witch-hunts against women, a young widow grapples with the tragic death of her husband in a society completely consumed by fear and death. Because she rejects the advances of her landlord, she is falsely accused of being a witch and thrown in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. She must endure physical persecution at the hands of England’s most ruthless witch-hunter and face her own inner demons as the devil himself starts to work his way into her mind.

Dreams in the Witch House

2005

A college student renting an old room in a boarding house discovers a plot by sinister, otherworldly forces to sacrifice his neighbor's infant.

Dead & Buried

1981

After a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses appear to be coming back to life and living normally as locals in the small town.

The Plague of the Zombies

1966

Sir James Forbes arrives in a remote Cornish village to identify a mysterious plague afflicting the population. He discovers that one of the squires is a disciple of Haitian witchcraft and using dark magic to resurrect the dead. As the plan to create undead servants unravels, the squire unleashes his zombie army on the unsuspecting village.

The Blair Witch Project

1999

In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.

Anna Goldin, the Last Witch

1991

A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.