9+ Best Boutique Blu-ray Distributors for Horror Fans

Vinegar Syndrome is one of the most well-known and well-respected Blu-ray labels operating today. They focus on cult and exploitation cinema, with genres including horror, action, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, sexploitation, and much more. They occasionally distribute newer films like The Outwaters (2022), but the majority of their movies were originally produced between the 1970s and 1990s.

Vinegar Syndrome releases multiple movies every month, and their attention to detail with special packaging and on-disc bonus features is impeccable. They also partner with many other, smaller labels, making the wide selection of movies in their store hard to top. Vinegar Syndrome should be right at the top of your list if you’re looking to get serious about collecting genre movies on disc, especially if your tastes veer towards the eclectic and the trashy. Our best suggestion is to check their site regularly and take a chance on whatever looks interesting to you.

Arrow Video is based in England, but they release Blu-rays for play in both the United Kingdom and North America. Arrow places a strong emphasis on world and classic cult cinema, and horror is well represented in their catalog. Through Arrow you can find everything from campy slashers like Doom Asylum (1988), to Italian gialli like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), to martial arts films like Sister Street Fighter (1974). Their packaging and artwork is often fantastic, and they pack loads of special features onto the discs with their movies.

You can’t go wrong with anything from Arrow, especially their limited edition sets. In addition to the movies mentioned in the above paragraph, recommendations on what to start with if you’re new to Arrow Video are Ring (aka Ringu, 1998) and the Giallo Essentials box sets.

Scream Factory is the horror-focused sublabel of Shout Factory. The movies Scream Factory releases tend to be more mainstream than most of the other labels in this list, but they do have a good amount of cult films as well. With Scream Factory you should be able to find many of your favorite older horror movies on collector’s edition Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray with lots of great bonus material. And while you’re browsing their offerings, you’re likely to come across some lesser-known movies you might’ve heard about but have never seen.

Some standout releases from Scream Factory include their superb 4K releases of the Halloween franchise from the original 1978 movie through Halloween: Resurrection (2002), a 4K restoration of Dog Soldiers (2002), and the Friday the 13th Collection box set with every movie (and two bonus discs) contained in a gorgeous box decorated with new art inspired by the franchise.

Unearthed Films is for the horror fan who is looking for something darker, more violent, and with a lot of blood. That’s not to say every release from Unearthed Films fits that description, but a lot of them do. Unearthed’s first releases back in the early 2000s were the North American debuts of the infamous Guinea Pig series from Japan. Though those films are now long out of print, Unearthed continues to release some of the best independent genre films from around the world. They pay particular attention to movies that feature horror, gore, and transgressive subject matter.

If you’re new to Unearthed Films and are looking for a place to start, their Unearthed Classics line is a great entry point that will give you a nice sampling of the style of movie Unearthed is known for with films like Evil Dead Trap (1988), The Untold Story (1993), and Premutos: The Fallen Angel (1997). Other suggestions for people ready to dive into the deep end of Unearthed Films include A Serbian Film (2010), American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore (2014), No Reason (2010), Atroz (2015), and August Underground (2001).

Severin Films began in 2006 with the mission of dedicating itself to releasing “the world’s most provocative cinema.” Their focus can stray towards the more risqué side of cult cinema, but their selection of horror movies make up the bulk of their store. Severin has horror from disturbing shockers like House on the Edge of the Park (1980) to more recent films like the dark comedy All About Evil (2010). Most of their films have original production dates from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Severin recently released what has to be their greatest box set yet: The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle. It is an astoundingly amazing 15-disc set that traces the lineage of the Black Emanuelle series starring Laura Gemser. Even though the set only contains at most a couple of movies that could be considered horror, it is the best example of Severin’s devotion to producing quality releases. As for their horror movies, some suggestions for getting started with Severin include Anthropophagous (1980), Burial Ground (1981), and the box set The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee.

Visual Vengeance, a sublabel of Wild Eye Releasing, began in 2022 as a distributor of low- to no-budget genre movies from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Most of the Visual Vengeance movies are shot on video (SOV) and very obscure. They all have a homemade quality to them, mostly because they are homemade in many ways. These movies are all gems of the lost era of SOV ingenuity and originality.

As a newer label, Visual Vengeance doesn’t have a deep catalog yet, but there are already a few unmissable highlights. Their first release, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (1995, or 2012 if you count when it was finished) is amazing and should be in every horror fan’s collection. Slaughter Day (1991) is wild, gory fun, and Suburban Sasquatch includes the original movie plus a commentary track from Rifftrax as a bonus feature. Also, it’s worth following Visual Vengeance and ordering their movies in advance, because in addition to bonuses like posters, booklets, and stickers with every release, they usually include inventive physical bonus items with preorders.

Mondo Macabro (which is Italian for “macabre world”) is devoted to bringing “strange, bizarre, and forgotten films” to the world. As their mission statement suggests, the movies available from Mondo Macabro come from all around the globe and are all weird and wonderful in their own amazingly entertaining ways. It’s difficult to pin down an exact genre that the company focuses on, because so many of their films transcend conventional definitions of genres like horror, fantasy, action, or sexploitation (though many of their films could fall into one or all of these categories).

If you enjoy weird exploitation cinema, then you really can’t go wrong with any movie offered by Mondo Macabro. However, if you’d like some suggestions to get started, a few personal favorites include the Mexican nunsploitation movie Alucarda (1977), the Japanese bakeneko (roughly: “ghost cat”) film A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse (1975), and the indescribable Indonesian action/horror/fantasy fever dream Lady Terminator (1988).