Synapse Films
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Synapse Films is a DVD label owned and operated by Don May, Jr., partner Jerry Chandler, and Charles Fiedler. The company specializes in cult horror, science fiction, and exploitation films.
Synapse's focus has been to provide quality restoration and video transfers to genre films usually neglected or granted shoddy release on home video. May has brought to the company an expertise in video mastering and film restoration gleaned from nearly a decade of experience in the LaserDisc industry, and personal enthusiasm for exploitation film of all stripe.
The Synapse catalog ranges from European horror touchstones like Vampyros Lesbos, and Castle of Blood, to important genre documentaries including Roy Frumkes' Document of the Dead, from drive-in favorites like The Brain That Wouldn't Die to Leni Riefenstahl’s controversial classic Triumph of the Will.
In 2004, Synapse released a definitive edition of the controversial Thriller - A Cruel Picture, a DVD which was not without controversy itself. Notoriously difficult director Bo Arne Vibenius repeatedly sent threatening dispaches from Europe to the Synapse offices, sometimes under false names, claiming the company had not secured the rights to release the DVD. The DVD was released without legal incident.
