Joseph Brenner Associates was a leading US distributor of exploitation films in the 1960s and 1970s. The company specialised in lurid eye-catching posters and hyperbolic trailers and found success in re-releasing notorious classic horrors such as Freaks and White Zombie to supposedly hip crowds looking for alternative sinema thrills in 1970.
Horror films distributed by Joseph Brenner included The Savage Intruder (1970 re-release), Virgin Witch (British horror lesbian sexploitation), So Evil, My Sister (aka Psycho Sisters); Shock Waves, The Devil’s Rain (re-release with John Travolta top-billed “at his most exciting Fever-pitch”!), Pete Walker’s House of Mortal Sin; Greek sleaze/horror He Murdered His Wife (a retitling of Death Kiss and Martin Scorsese’s 1968 “macabre” short The Big Shave.
A number of Italian movies received their US theatrical distribution thanks to Joseph Brenner, such as Man from Deep River aka Sacrifice, Sergio Martino’s Torso, Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball, (Gatti rossi in un labrinito di vetro, 1974) Armando Crispino’s Autopsy (Macchie solari, 1974); Girl from Room 2a (La casa della paura), the re-release of Suspiria and Almost Human (a 1976 Umberto Lenzi crime flick made to appear to be horror to cash-in on the early ’80s boom).
In 1975, the company oversaw the US release of Shaw Brothers’ Hong Kong tokusatsu The Super Inframan as Infra-Man. According to the artwork below, in the 80s they also promoted low budget monster mayhem movie Attack of the Beast Creatures.
Related: Group 1 film distributors | Hallmark Releasing Corp
