Haxan The Criterion Collection 10/19 Blu-ray (Rental)

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn of the century psychiatric patients. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a witches’ brew of the scary, the gross, and the darkly humorous. Christensen’s mix and match approach to genre anticipates gothic horror, documentary re creation, and the essay film, making for an experience unlike anything else in the history of cinema. BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration • Music from the original Danish premiere, arranged by film music specialist Gillian Anderson and performed by the Czech Film Orchestra in 2001, presented in 5.0 surround DTS HD Master Audio • Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film scholar Casper Tybjerg • Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968), the seventy six minute version of Häxan, narrated by author William S. Burroughs, with a soundtrack featuring violinist Jean Luc Ponty • Director Benjamin Christensen’s introduction to the 1941 rerelease • Short selection of outtakes • Bibliothèque Diabolique: a photographic exploration of Christensen’s historical sources • PLUS: Essays by critic Chris Fujiwara and scholar Chloé Germaine Buckley, as well as remarks on the score by Anderson