Mike Vraney

Mike Vraney first fell in love with exploitation cinema while working various jobs at several drive-in movie theaters and porno theaters as a teenager. The high school dropout ran a comic book shop and produced concerts and film conventions prior to launching the video distributor Something Weird Video (SWV) in 1990. SWV specializes in releasing a rich array of low-grade trashy out-of-the-mainstream independent fare on both VHS and DVD alike that runs the gamut from horror features to softcore flicks to vintage classroom scare items to TV commercials to hardcore X-rated smut to theatrical trailers to collections of nudie loops and burlesque clips. Among the notable schlock cult cinema figures whose pictures have been issued on the SWV label are Herschell Gordon Lewis, David F. Friedman, Harry H. Novak, Joseph W. Sarno, Doris Wishman, William Grefé, Bethel Buckalew and Barry Mahon. Vraney was an associate producer on the belated sequel Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002) and appeared as himself in the documentaries Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2003), Mau Mau Sex Sex (2001) and Hype! (1996). In addition to his cinema-related business, he also managed the punk band 'DEK'; his son Mark Vraney was a member of the group. Vraney lived in Seatle, Washington, with his artist wife, Lisa Petrucci. He died at age 56 from lung cancer on January 2, 2014.