LBBLURAY019
HAXAN - WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES
NARRATED BY WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS / WITH NEW MUSIC BY DOCTOR X

 

Blu Ray $16.99 (includes S&H)
U.S. orders only - Sorry, no international shipping:


DVD $16.99 (includes S&H)
U.S. orders only - Sorry, no international shipping:

 

Digital download $9.99 (you'll receive an email link to your download within minutes of paying):

 



Benjamin Christensen's 1922 masterpiece is now available in a unique HD edition!

A bit of background:

This film is a bizarre (but accurate) docudrama about Witchcraft, focusing on the Late MIddle Ages. It exists in two editions; the original, and a re-issue from 1968. The original print is gorgeous, but it includes far too many title cards and uses innappropriately well-known classical pieces for the soundtrack. The reissue is an inferior second-generation black-and-white print, but the soundtrack is cool. It's narrated by beat poet William S. Burroughs and includes an avant-garde jazz score by a quartet that features a young Jean Luc-Ponty on violin.

We tried watching the gorgeous print, but the Beethoven/Mozart music was really, really annoying. (We'll forgive Christensen; the industry was still in its infancy at the time and most film scores were cobbled together from existing classical pieces.) Then we tried watching the 1968 print instead, but it looked awful compared to the original. OK, so then we tried syncing up the 1968 score to the original print for our own gratification, but the 1968 print ran too fast, so the music always ran out before each scene finished.

The challenge was to extract Burrough's wonderful narration from the jazz score mix and then to write new avant-garde music for the original print.

As usual, Doctor X (along with RX software from izotope inc.) was up to the challenge....

The results are available in a stunning 5.1 surround-sound Blu Ray, a 24-bit DTS surround-sound DVD, or as a stereo download. The surround-sound versions will play in stereo if your system doesn't include surround-sound capabilities.

Highly recommended!

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