Assuming you are referring to the 2017 atmospheric horror film "Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse" (directed by Lukas Feigelfeld), this guide is designed to help you understand, appreciate, and navigate the film.
This is not a "game guide," but rather a viewer’s companion. Hagazussa is an arthouse horror film that defies conventional storytelling; knowing what to expect will significantly improve your experience.
To appreciate Hagazussa, you must abandon conventional narrative expectations. The film is structured in four chapters, tracking the life of a woman named Albrun in the Austrian Alps during the Middle Ages.
Chapter One: The Shadow We open in 15th-century Austria. A young girl, Albrun, lives with her mother, a woman already ostracized by the tiny mountain community. Her mother is sick—perhaps with the plague, perhaps with madness. She speaks of a "black thing" that visits her at night. The villagers keep their distance, already treating the hovel on the hill as a plague house. In a devastatingly slow sequence, Albrun’s mother dies. The little girl, utterly alone, places stones over her mother’s corpse in a futile attempt to keep her in the ground. This chapter establishes the film’s core thesis: isolation is the true curse.
Chapter Two: The Horn Years later, Albrun is a young woman (played with haunting physicality by Aleksandra Cwen). She lives alone with her infant daughter, surviving by grazing goats and selling trinkets. She is a Hagazussa in practice: she lives on the hedge of the town’s tolerance. Here, the horror shifts to social paranoia. A local villager, Swinda, feigns friendship with Albrun. But in a cruel act of "baptism by fire," Swinda accuses Albrun of using a goat’s horn as a phallic idol. The film’s most shocking sexual assault sequence occurs not as a jump scare, but as a muddy, realistic violation. Swinda and her husband hold Albrun down, smear her with filth, and beat her. The Hagazussa is not powerful here; she is a victim.
Chapter Three: The Witch This is where the film abandons reality for hallucination. Broken by the assault and starving in the winter snow, Albrun’s grip on sanity shatters. She begins to believe that a demon lives in the reflection of her water bucket. She mistakes a dead rabbit for a sign. In the film’s most controversial sequence, Albrun—convinced her own infant has been corrupted or is not human—kills her child in a trance-like state. This is not a jump-scare horror movie. It is a slow, agonizing observation of psychosis. Feigelfeld forces us to watch the disintegration of a soul. Is she a witch? Or a traumatized woman accused of being one until she becomes the monster they always saw? Hagazussa
Chapter Four: The Hagazussa The final chapter is a five-minute static shot of Albrun, naked and covered in soot, sitting in a burning hut. She does not scream. She does not run. As the flames consume the wooden structure, Albrun reaches a state of ecstatic transcendence. She is no longer Albrun. She is the Hagazussa—the one on the hedge, finally crossing over into the spiritual fire.
Hagazussa sits alongside other modern “folk horror” films that privilege atmosphere and cultural specificity, such as The Witch (2015) and The Wicker Man (1973). Unlike more rhetorical entries, however, Hagazussa leans into experimental, arthouse aesthetics, channeling European art-house traditions and the unforgiving naturalism of filmmakers like Béla Tarr. It’s less about allegory and more about an experiential transmission of fear.
Since its release, Hagazussa has become a litmus test for horror fans. Mention it at a party, and you will either find a fellow traveler who will whisper, "The bucket scene... god..." or someone who will look at you with genuine disgust that you sat through it.
Director Lukas Feigelfeld has since moved on to other projects (including segments in the The Last Winter series), but Hagazussa remains his thesis statement. He once said in an interview: "We don't burn witches anymore. Now we just prescribe them pills and tell them to go away. The woman on the hedge is still there. We just built suburbs over the hedge."
That is the true horror of the Hagazussa. She is not a demon. She is not a heretic. She is the neighbor we pushed out, the mother we accused, the single woman we decided was "too weird." And when she finally sits on the hedge and lights the fire, she doesn't do it for Satan. She does it because it is the only warmth the world ever gave her. Assuming you are referring to the 2017 atmospheric
If you are researching the keyword "Hagazussa" for academic purposes or film analysis, be sure to explore primary sources on the Alpine Nachzehrer (shroud-eaters) and the Drudenfuss (pentagram charm), as these motifs heavily influence the film’s visual language.
The film is an atmospheric "pagan death trip" set in the 15th-century Austrian Alps. It is celebrated for its haunting cinematography and sparse dialogue, often drawing comparisons to Robert Eggers’ The Witch.
Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse (2017) is a German-Austrian folk horror film directed by Lukas Feigelfeld, exploring themes of paranoia and witchcraft in the 15th-century Alps through a slow-burn, atmospheric narrative. While praised for its visual style and dread-filled atmosphere, the film is considered highly polarizing due to its minimalist dialogue and disturbing, visceral content. Read more in the reviews from The Hollywood Reporter
In the pantheon of modern horror cinema, certain names elicit immediate recognition: The Witch, Midsommar, The Lighthouse. These films are celebrated for their "elevated horror"—a slow-burn blend of psychological dread, historical accuracy, and artistic ambition. Yet, lurking just beneath the surface of these mainstream hits is a far more obscure, unsettling, and radical film: Lukas Feigelfeld’s 2017 debut, Hagazussa.
For those who have searched for the term Hagazussa, you are likely looking for something more than a typical witch movie. You are looking for the intersection of Alpine folklore, pagan dread, and slow-cinema nihilism. This article is a deep dive into the history, symbolism, and terrifying power of Hagazussa—a film that refuses to hold your hand as it descends into medieval madness. The Plot: A Three-Act Descent into Madness To
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.
To enjoy this film, you must enter with the right mindset. Do not expect jump scares, gore, or a fast-paced plot.
At its core, Hagazussa is about otherness, inherited stigma, and how patriarchal and religious structures label, persecute, and internalize deviance. The film interrogates the intersection of mental illness, grief, and superstition: is Albrun truly touched by witchcraft, or is she collapsing under the weight of trauma and social alienation? Feigelfeld resists tidy answers, preferring to let ambiguity linger. The mountainous setting also functions metaphorically: the landscape both isolates and shapes cultural belief, suggesting that geography and hardship can harden communities into superstition and cruelty.