If you really love movies, the best place to see them is in a theater. But if you really love obscure movies, old movies, outright weird movies, you probably won’t find those playing at your local cinema - you’ll have to seek them out on video. This being the case, those people in the world who devote their time and energy to making the obscure and the outre available on video for all of us are vitally important, and should be greatly appreciated.

Mike Vraney, who founded Something Weird Video in Seattle, was one of those vitally important people. This makes his recent death (at age 56) something worth noting.

 

 

Over the past couple of decades, Something Weird has made a great deal of weird somethings available for the hardcore film fans of the world. The films they released on video covered numerous genres – from early drug scare films to 1950s “nudie cuties” to the groundbreaking gore flicks of Herschell Gordon Lewis and much, much more.

Beyond that, as a collector and cinema historian, Vraney also proved to be an invaluable resource to those researching and writing about the underground and back alley aspects of American cinematic history. A book that I just finished reading, Eric Schaefer’s Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! A History of Exploitation Films, 1919 – 1959, cites him as being a major source of original materials used to put the book together. In the acknowledgements, Schaefer also says, “I am also grateful for the efforts that Mike has made to find and preserve this unique slice of American culture…”

We should all be grateful for that, very grateful. Thank you, Mike. Your efforts are appreciated.

 

And, by the way…If you’ve never seen the 1967 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie (Something Weird) that Vraney took as his company name, you’re missing out on one of the most incredible, insane and audacious low-budget whatisits ever made. The “bedding attack” scene alone is worth the price of admission. Amazing!