HÄXAN Music New & Old

October 11, 2019

German Silent Horror Classic Comes to Blu-ray, Rescore Debuts on Lakeshore Records

Cemetery Gates, horror-centric film music composers and creators of “synth-driven death ballads,” has given the 1922 horror film an update: HÄXAN –Original Motion Picture Rescore is out now digitally on Lakeshore Records. “If you’ve seen the film previously, give the rescore a go for a fresh outlook,” the label suggests. 

Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film’s own time.

Criterion has remastered the classic film HÄXAN which is now is headed for the great video treasure troves of The Criterion Collection. Criterion’s release includes music from the 1922 Danish premiere, arranged by film-music specialist Gillian B. Anderson and performed by the Czech Film Orchestra in 2001, presented in 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray and in Dolby Digital 5.0 on the DVD. Purchase the film on October 15 on 2K digital restoration and DVD transfer at Criterion online.

Purchase or listen to Lakeshore’s Cemetery Gates rescore here

Book One
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This website was created partly to promote the book series, Musique Fantastique [Second Edition] 100+ Years of Fantasy, Science Fiction & Horror Film Music by Randall D. Larson, but more importantly is intended to be a resource for news, views, & interviews about music for science fiction, fantasy, and horror films. As an extension of the books, it provides additional material and links to further resources about this unique genre of film and television scoring. For news on the book series, scroll down toward the bottom of the home page.

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Frontispiece artwork by Allen Koszowski from Musique Fantastique 1st Edition, Scarecrow Press, 1985.