Severin Films

The story of the insane scandals related to the remake of “Island of Dr. Moreau” —originally a novel by H. G. Wells—, which was brought to the big screen in 1996. How director Richard Stanley spent four years developing the project just to find an abrupt end to his work while leading actor Marlon Brando pulled the strings in the shadows. Now for the first time, the living key players recount what really happened and why it all went so spectacularly wrong.

An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.

A documentary about Suzzanna, "the Queen of Indonesian horror" - an actress who starred in many of the country's most iconic and beloved horror pictures.

An American family visiting their Irish roots accidentally stumbles on a horde of bloodthirsty mutant children.

Down a seedy city street in her neighborhood, young Enola Penny is obsessed with what appears to be a long abandoned theatre. One night, she sees that the front door is slightly ajar and impulsively decides to sneak inside. But there in the dark, decrepit auditorium, a show unlike any other unfolds before her eyes. Its host is an eerie human puppet named Peg Poett who will introduce Penny to six tales of the bizarre: A couple traveling in a remote part of the French Pyrenees cross paths with a lustful witch; A paranoid lover faces the wrath of a partner who has been pushed to her limit; The Freudian dreams of an unfaithful husband blur the lines between fantasy and reality; The horrors of the real world are interpreted through the mind of a child; A woman addicted to other people's memories gets her fix through the vitreous fluid of her victims' eyeballs; And a perverse obsession with sweets turns sour for a couple in too deep.

Love blossoms between Evan and Kim in the coastal town of Santa Cruz, California, but so does a flock of displaced sea eagles, who go on a rampage.

After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, a professional wrestler takes a job at a group home for youth offenders. But when a psychopath wearing a wrestling mask begins butchering the teenage residents, their rehabilitation will become a no-holds-barred battle for survival. Originally filmed in 1994 but completed in 2019.

A detailed look at the history of horror anthology films.

Quinqui cinema encompassed a series of Spanish crime films with a unique national sensibility, as they reflected the times of the Franco dictatorship transition. Guided by academics Mery Cuesta and Tom Whittaker, this featurette explores this explosive subgenre.

Bikers, Nazis, Mafiosi, and the FBI all clash in this wild and wooly exploitation picture from director Al Adamson. Mark Adams (John Gabriel) is an FBI agent who has been assigned to infiltrate an organized crime ring that has obtained a set of printing plates that will allow them to produce nearly perfect counterfeit 20-dollar bills. The plates were made in Germany during World War II, and were discovered by a radical right-wing group hoping to restore the Nazi Party to power. The American gangsters are in cahoots with a group of wealthy American neo-Nazis sympathetic to the new German cause, led by fugitive war criminal Count von Delberg (Kent Taylor); the count has in turn recruited a vicious motorcycle gang, the Bloody Devils, to do his dirty work.

Get ready to play a game of death… and another… and another. This wild documentary dives into the Bruce Lee exploitation craze.

Documentary tracing the history of Soviet fantasy and sci-fi films. Included on Severin's release of Viy.

Franco's death in 1975 opened the doors to the possibility of uncensored cinema. After two years in which censorship was relaxed, in 1977 it was completely abolished, and the “S” classification was created to protect viewers from those films that could “hurt their sensitivity.” The “S” classification was granted when the content was especially violent, sexual or political, creating a mixed bag in which all types of unclassifiable films could fit. In force from 1978 to 1983, this classification turned out to be a great commercial attraction for a society that had suffered four decades of national-Catholic dictatorship and repression.

Brought to life through archival material and the reflections of over 40 colleagues, friends and fans, BLOOD & FLESH is much more than the story of a moviemaking life most unusual. It beautifully captures the worlds of outsider filmmaker communities that existed in California in the ’70s, and the weird ways they intersected with Hollywood mainstream and union indies. On Adamson shoots, regular Orson Welles crew and cinematographers like Gary Graver, Vilmos Szigmond and Lazlo Kovaks worked alongside Bud Cardos — and at one point, Charles Manson! Director David Gregory (founder of Severin Films, director of LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU) spent years making this film, speaking to everyone down to the cops who investigated Adamson’s murder, vividly encapsulating both a bold life and tragic demise, with alien conspiracies, go-go dancers and Colonel Sanders coming in along the way. If you’ve got even a passing interest in cinema, you want to see this

Before the advent of modern-day pornography, a vast and rapidly-paced world of smut peddling was the norm, complete with its own secret history. This documentary reveals the untold story of American cinema's gloriously sordid cinematic past. Starting in the 1920s, expert exploiteer David F. Friedman and Henenlotter navigate us through more than five salacious decades of skin flicks. It's the true story of dirty movies, traced in elegant detail from the bizarre locations where these nudie shorts were screened to the ongoing legal battles fought by their promoters. And of course there are the stories of the innovators themselves, people who often risked their own security and livelihood to make these films, believing in some way that what they were doing wasn't a 'bad' thing - and that it could rake in some dough.

In this short making-of documentary, director Nicolas Roeg discusses the production history of the film and the unique qualities of Daphne Du Maurier's story that inspired it, while director of photography Anthony B. Richmond explains the significance of specific scenes, including the notorious sex scene, and how they were shot. Editor Graeme Clifford also discusses his contribution to the film.

A feature-length documentary film adaptation of the 1994 non-fiction book of the same name, chronicling the history of Mondo cinema and the "death film".

Documentary about the life and career of actress Carolina Cataldi-Tassoni with special focus on her work in Dario Argento's "Opera".

Documentary taking a look at Mondo movies.

A documentary about the making of Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1986 film BETTY BLUE.