Boutique Blu-ray label Vinegar Syndrome is all about saving films from obscurity

Theresa Mercado. // photo courtesy Vinegar Syndrome

A screening of Vinegar Syndrome’s restoration of Blood Beat shows at Liberty Hall on Monday, December 15, with a pop-up shop in the lobby before the screening. from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Details on those events here.

If you are at all a fan of genre cinema–be it horror, action, Italian gialli, and cult films in general–as well as a proponent of physical media, you’re likely a fan of boutique Blu-ray label Vinegar Syndrome. Founded by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson in 2012, the Connecticut-based company has rescued films like the brain-melting, cobbled-together horror film Spookies from unjust VHS obscurity, in addition to lavishing attention on films once relegated to joke status, like the deluxe 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray set for the cable staple sword-and-sorcery movie, The Beastmaster, and pretty much everything in between.

While Vinegar Syndrome is best known for their restoration work for home video and the care which goes into making those releases collectible items on par with vinyl records, the company has expanded over the years into making their releases available for theatrical release. That theatrical component is a big part of Vinegar Syndrome and everything they do, says Theresa Mercado, Vinegar Syndrome’s Director of Theatrical & Special Events.

“As you probably know, we are a film restoration, distribution, and preservation company,” explains Mercado by phone. “And many of the films that we have done restoration work on, we also own the theatrical rights for.”

Vinegar Syndrome’s theatrical catalog is pretty vast at this point, Mercado continues, explaining that there are around 200 titles for which they own the theatrical rights. Said rights are managed by managed by the American Genre Film Archive, or AGFA, and the company is also branching out into original productions and co-productions with their Vinegar Syndrome Pictures sub-label, such as Ryan Kruger’s 2024 reboot of the 1987 body melt movie, Street Trash, along with their latest, Anything That Moves, from director Alex Phillips, who did 2022’s All Jacked Up and Full of Worms.

Both are pictures that fit within the same wheelhouse of what Vinegar Syndrome does in terms of genre, such as exploitation and horror.

“Theatrical screenings go hand in hand with everything else we do,” Mercado says. “We’re so grateful to our fans who love buying these movies and watching ’em at home, but so many of these movies also are perfect for watching in the theater with an audience and with like-minded people who love genre cinema.”

It’s just a totally different experience to be able to see these films in a theater with people laughing, hooting, and hollering, Mercado offers, with theatrical showings having that “audience energy” sitting on your living room couch can’t replicate.

The importance of archiving and making sure that these films are available in a format where folks can continue to see them is paramount to what companies such as Vinegar Syndrome and non-profits like AGFA do, but we wanted to know how the company decides why something like Fabrice Zaphiratos’ 1983 supernatural slasher Blood Beat–which “applies an arthouse aesthetic to its American regional cinema stylings, resulting in a dreamy and haunting atmosphere to compliment the bloodletting and outrageous twists”–should be scanned and restored in such a way that fans can see it outside of shoddy YouTube VHS rips?

“There are a lot of factors there,” Mercado explains. “Everything VinSyn does a restoration of are movies that were shot on film either 16 or 35 millimeter. We have branched recently into a little bit of shot-on-video stuff with our Degausser sub-label but for all intents and purposes, Vinegar Syndrome is films that were shot on film.”

It’s very important that, for these restorations, there is a usable film element from which to do a restoration. At the label’s headquarters in Connecticut is the lab where they do the scan, and then do the actual audio and visual restoration work themselves. If there is something usable, then they have to determine what condition is that film element or negative in and if it is able to even be scanned.

Examining a print. // photo courtesy Vinegar Syndrome

“Are there missing reels? Is there missing footage? Is there something actually to work from?” Mercado continues to list the factors, continuing on to factors like if the film has ever been released on Blu-ray or 4K before, or even disc at all, along with what the rights situation looks like.

“Who owns the rights?” questions Mercado. “Is there a rights holder that we can find? A lot of people own rights to something, but they are content with just holding onto it and don’t necessarily want to do anything with it, so even if we find something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can get the permission to do a restoration for it.”

Something like Blood Beat was trapped on VHS forever, and many of the other films in the Vinegar Syndrome catalog also ended at VHS, making their work is an opportunity for older people that grew up on the movies and for young people that have never heard of these movies to have the opportunity to see them, as well as for these films to have a second life that they probably never would’ve had.

“Films like Blood Beat skew weird,” Mercado offers. “It was a French/U.S. co-production. This thing was like the epitome of a lost Christmas movie classic that, unless you were a VHS collector or grew up in video stores, you probably never saw or heard of this movie.”

There’s something for everyone at Vinegar Syndrome, with the main label, as well as nine sub-labels like Melusine, which features adult films; Degausser, which focuses on shot-on-video releases; Cinématographe Films, offering a mix of auteur-driven studio films; and more. There’s also their distribution company, OCN, which helps get films from everyone from AGFA to Dark Star Pictures to Yellow Veil Pictures into fans’ Blu-ray players.

“As a collector, as someone who loves film, who can’t watch enough movies–to me, it’s a beautiful time to be a collector and have access to so much media that wasn’t available 10-plus years ago,” Mercado enthuses. “There were companies already, of course, doing this work. The well is just overflowing right now with so much stuff and so many companies doing great work.”

Reviver logo. // photo courtesy Vinegar Syndrome

One of the newest endeavors at Vinegar Syndrome, in terms of sub-labels, is Reviver, which is a fascinating concept. Essentially, it boils down to the company saying to its fans, “If you are adventurous, trust us,” as Reviver releases “lost films and missing movies found within the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive,” with each release offered as a “mystery box” blind-buy customers won’t know more than general details regarding until it hits their mailbox.

The whole project is masterminded by Oscar Becher, Vinegar Syndrome’s Archivist & Vault Manager, and it’s meant to bring just as much attention to the background work done by the many people at the label as the films themselves.

“You’re supposed to lose yourself in the film,” says Becher over Zoom. “But I think when I started here, I was really obsessed with being really straightforward about the limitations and by doing so, highlighting the work of my colleagues and just showcasing the sheer insane, ‘you wouldn’t ever imagine how much work has to be put into these things.’”

Of course, with all that work, there’s still going to be someone on Letterboxd saying that the movie sucks, so Becher’s whole modus operandi for the Reviver project is to be as straightforward as humanly possible with each release.

“What makes these interesting is going to be unique for each person,” Becher explains. “But if you’re a film scholar, you know the concept of film as object and what we are basically selling is, ‘This is a find,’ and after the finding process–which you get to partake in by going through that whole mystery aspect of it, which you don’t exactly know what you’re gonna get–then everyone gets to make their own memories with it.”

It’s a blank slate, where everybody gets to start at roughly the same point, depending on when it shows up in the mail or if someone manages to follow the rough outline and guess what’s being released but mainly, it’s the idea of being as straightforward as humanly possible with the limitations and even the limitations of the film itself.

“I opted for as minimal digital alteration as possible, also as an educational facet,” Becher continues. “By basically minimizing the amount of digital restoration, we get to show the actual film as an actual piece of material.”

Oscar Becher. // photo courtesy Vinegar Syndrome

As to what the process of determining what the first Reviver release was going to be, Becher explains that he has a pretty solid choice, as he wanted to set the stage for what the whole sub-label was going to be.

“The filmmaker itself has a very close tie to the very early days of Vinegar Syndrome, solidifying its aim as a film preservation company that wants to make accessible lost films,” Becher alludes, wanting to make sure that the surprise isn’t ruined. “The basic tenet of the first one was tying back to the very early days of Vinegar Syndrome because Vinegar Syndrome’s a preservation company first and foremost, and we’ve released a crazy amount of lost films.”

Frankly, Becher admits, it got really irritating seeing the amount of lost films that the company has, and while Reviver’s first release isn’t going to sell out 12,000 copies, making it accessible is important. To that end, there will be basically four different kinds of releases from Reviver, which will have differing levels of comprehensiveness. The first release is a very sought-after lost feature with some additional curatorially interesting “throw-ins,” such as two state-produced short films and two totally lost horror films, one of which was never completed.

Next up will be pairings of lost films from better elements, which are tied in by producers or directors or people who are in them. The third is “something which Vinegar Syndrome as a company has never done before, but it’ll be interesting,” and the fourth is a comprehensive look at lost films, which the company has acquired over time, so that viewers will have everything for.

“You’ll have a work print or you’ll have outtakes,” Becher continues. “And basically see what did not make it into the final version of the film. By doing so, we’ll learn a little bit about the history of why the film became lost, because if you see outtakes in it, you see an insane amount of outtakes. You’re automatically like, ‘Oh, this is a person who was a perfectionist.’”

“If you’re a filmmaker and you’re a perfectionist, there’s a good chance that unless you miraculously made Citizen Kane, your film may end up like falling victim to becoming missing or forgotten or something like that,” clarifies Becher. “I feel like that is a very easy way to actually bring these things to people. The two birds, one stone of getting this lost film out there while also continuing hunting, using the funds to hunt for lost films, too.”

Looking at recent releases like In A Violent Nature or Freaked, it seems that lately, the concept of taking unedited outtakes or presenting them to the viewer outside of a documentary featurette allows someone to gain an appreciation for the work and the challenges of making small, low-budget pictures. In A Violent Nature, notably, has a solid 40 minutes of footage shot for the version of that film that got scrapped because it went so poorly.

We suggest to Becher that Reviver has an educational aspect to it that’s fun, rather than didactic, and he agrees.

“Not to be overly pedagogical–which I’ve been accused of being–but I think I’m a constant obsessive with learning,” offers the archivist. “I like learning by making mistakes and I think when we’re dealing with these films on lower budgets, these filmmakers are also learning by making mistakes. Then, if it’s a lost film like something that we’d release on Reviver, essentially what that means is if one mistake is too costly, then they’ll go missing.”

A lost film is fascinating, first and foremost, because you can’t see it, Becher says, and after you’ve seen it, then there’s a mental dichotomy wherein the viewer asks themselves, “Is it good or bad? Is it a long-lost treasure or is it lost because it was shitty?” From there, there’s the conundrum of whether you’ll watch it again, because any rewatchability is tied purely to what the film is. It’s not in the canon and probably will never be, because it missed its chance.

“But I think there’s the idea of–to steal missing Dennis Doros and Amy Heller’s Missing Movie ethos–which is with lost films, you get to fuck with the canon a little bit,” says Becher. “You get to fuck with the predetermined history of what made it to the public consciousness.”

When you release a lost film, it’s all about history and the actual stories behind the film, Becher says, explaining that, for the first time, it’s the way of taking the monetary distribution mechanism out of it, where it goes back into the hands of the consumers to determine everything.

“With lost films and Reviver in general, I think there’s a very important aspect of it,” says Becher. “Which is the democratization of things that we can’t see, which is the basic concept of a lost film. Once it’s seeable, everyone gets to make a decision.”

Everybody making the decision means it’s not just the critics, the distributors, nor the producers who blocked the film from being released. It’s the people who actually get to watch it and took the blind buy of something for which there’s theoretically no audience.

“It’s a direct access means of showcasing the weird shit that’s in our archive and using every piece of the gristle and the meat and the bones to do something with it where we can actually showcase to everybody,” Becher concludes.

A screening of Vinegar Syndrome’s restoration of Blood Beat shows at Liberty Hall on Monday, December 15, with a pop-up shop in the lobby before the screening. from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Details on those events here.

The Ruben Galindo Jr. trilogy of films from Vinegar Syndrome. // photo by Nick Spacek

Theresa Mercado, Director of Theatrical & Special Events for Vinegar Syndrome, has some recommendations for some titles to grab, should you be unfamiliar with the label’s offerings.

“One of my favorite movies that Vinegar Syndrome has ever put out is The Corruption of Chris Miller,” Mercado says. “Beautiful. Actually a Spanish film, but still all of the trappings of the giallo. It is absolutely beautifully shot. Great black-glove killer. It is very female centric fantastic film.”

She is also very excited about the restoration the label did a couple of years ago of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort, with its all-star cast and Deliverance vibe of “a group of men making bad decisions over a long weekend, and all those decisions are going to affect the rest of their life if they can get through a weekend in the Bayou. Just a fantastic movie that I was so excited that we were able to to release on 4K for the first time.”

There’s so many Mercado wanted to recommend that she actually walked over to my movie shelf as we were talking, and ended by enthusing about what a huge fan of the three movies from Mexican horror director Ruben Galindo Jr. put out by Vinegar Syndrome.

“Don’t Panic, Cemetery of Terror, and Grave Robbers. Perfect horror movies. They set the tone, they set the stage–equal parts schlocky, but also just good horror, practical effects–too old of a man wearing child’s pajamas–but those are just fun, great, classic Mexican horror movies that I just challenge anybody to watch those and not love them.”