Mike Vraney was the founder of Something Weird Video, an American film distributor company based in Seattle, Washington. On January 2, 2014, he died after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He was fifty-six years old. His sterling efforts to dig out and release masses of horror and exploitation films have undoubtedly been a major boon to the world of cult cinema, especially as his iconic label — which started out as basically a fan operation — had moved into legitimacy long ago via officially sanctioned DVD releases in conjunction with Image Entertainment and had recently been releasing Blu-rays and their own documentaries. Mike’s passion for trash cinema will be sorely missed.
Something Weird Video specialise in exploitation films, particularly the works of Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis. The company is named after Lewis’ 1967 film Something Weird, and the logo is taken from that film’s original poster art. Something Weird has distributed well over 2,500 films to date. Even when the movies themselves were pretty awful, Vraney ensured fans got their money’s worth by making up themed triple-bills and loading DVDs with masses of ultra-obscure and head-shaking extras.
Vraney was inspired by his teenage job as a theater projectionist. His love for the obscure films that never made it to video prompted him to transfer hundreds of ancient reels of film to VHS and DVD. On the company website, he explained the label’s genesis:
‘In my mind, the last great genre to be scavenged were the exploitation/sexploitation films of the ’30s through the ’70s. After looking into this further, I realized that there were nearly 2,000 movies out there yet to be discovered. So with this for inspiration, my quest began and wouldn’t you know, just out of the blue I fell into a large collection of 16mm girlie arcade loops (which became the first compilation videos we put together). Around the same time I received an unexpected phone call that suddenly made all this real: my future and hands-down the king of sexploitation Dave Friedman was on the other end of the line. This would be the beginning of a long and fruitful friendship for both of us. Dave’s films became the building blocks for our film collection and he has taught and guided me through the wonderful world of sexploitation, introducing me to his colleagues (Dan Sonney, Harry Novak, H. G. Lewis, Bob Cresse and all the other colourful characters who were involved during his heyday) and they’ve been eager to dive into the business again.’
Adrian J Smith
