Don May Jr.: Cult Film Maverick! Part One

Keeping the faith and kicking out the jams

By Andrew Hershberger     April 12, 2002

The DVD sea is full of charlatans, out to get your buck without thinking 'bout their due to you. Shelves are filled with titles released by myriad companies with sketchy track records. One minute you're laying down your cold hard cash to take in a favorite title only to find the next that what was supposed to be the be-all-end-all of home viewing experiences is some poorly mastered, third generation, improperly letterboxed piece of junk that looks worse then your bootleg video copy.

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Sure, this doesn't come into play with many of the high profile releases from the big names, but CINESCAPE readers aren't always on the lookout for CROSSROADS or MONKEYBONE; they want the fringe stuff, the movies the Psychotronic video guides are built upon. In these fringes is where the most vicious predators lie, taking advantage of lax copyrights and what have you, to give you the least for the most of your money. One's got to keep an eye out for the good stuff, to seek out that Criterion quality... to lay their dough on Synapse Films (www.synapse-films.com). Co-run by living DVD and Laserdisc legend Don May Jr., this little outfit is perhaps the single best cult title company on the market. You may not like all their releases, but you'll definitely like their style. Recently, CINESCAPE spoke with May about Synapse, his stint as an actor, and his investigation by the Secret Service.

The first thing that strikes you about May is his easygoing charm. A man who knows his business and his films, he's seldom at a loss for words, providing killer news and fascinating tales without the smug name-dropping of a Dick Cavett. There's no need for this amiability - after all, this is the man who in his Laserdisc days with Elite Entertainment brought forth the remastered NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, proving once and for all that genre entertainment has a place in the discerning home video viewer's library (and that green talks pretty damn loud). May could be a condescending prick, which he certainly is not, and his fans would still love him for his track record.

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After leaving Elite over five years ago, May went on to form, along with Jerry Chandler and Charles Fielder, what stands as the Criterion of Cult, Synapse Films. You know when you rent or buy one of their films that it's the best it could look in the best package May could provide. The catalogue itself may be small but the selections are gold and growing. Long unavailable gems like VAMPYROS LESBOS, ORGAN, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, EVIL DEAD TRAP, EXORCISM and THE GRAPES OF DEATH stand next to daring independents like DEADBEAT AT DAWN, SIX DAYS IN ROSWELL, FATAL FRAMES and A BETTER PLACE. What's more, who else would have the guts to release the controversial TRIUMPH OF THE WILL looking better than ever and backed with a commentary track the puts Hitler's evil regime in their place? And the titles keep coming; long awaited favorites such as INVASION U.S.A. (no, not the Chuck Norris film), THRILLER A CRUEL PICTURE, SINGAPORE SLING and CASTLE OF BLOOD are on their way, along with Synapse's most daring release to date, an unedited version of Radley Metzger's erotic masterpiece THE IMAGE. It's enough to make a cult fan jump up and say Hallelujah! With such a diverse catalogue, what's May up to?

"I love horror movies and I love sci-fi," says May. "[But] I know that being pigeonholed into one particular genre isn't necessarily a good idea. I've learned over the years that I've been in this business that you don't want to say, 'O.K. we're only going to do sci-fi-horror,' because if you do then you're really going to limit yourself with what you can do and you can only grow so far. But if I do other things, like comedies and dramas, it builds my reputation as a company who is willing to try new ideas and I'm not that sci-fi-horror film guy anymore."

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"[I'm] branching out and doing other things, experimental things like THE IMAGE - it's erotic cinema and it's very explicit," he continues. "I don't know whether anybody's going to buy it, my normal route of distribution isn't necessarily going to pick it up, [but] we're in a position right now where we can take those chances and I feel great. Five years ago I would have said, 'Hell, no way,' but now our company is known enough, we have enough distributors. We were lucky to get into the DVD business when getting into the DVD business was good. I'm the guy who has the balls to do some of the more controversial stuff, and I'm not afraid to do it."

May is no stranger to controversy, particularly in regard to his letter writing activities of youth - activities that lead to an unexpected investigation by the Secret Service. "Back when I was right out of college," explains May, "I was living in Bloomington in the bottom of a fraternity house and just as a joke I decided to send out a bunch of letters to various people in the industry, celebrities and what not. [I] asked them to write me a haiku defining the word art, draw me a picture and send it back. I said, 'Hey, I'm doing a report [for school]' which wasn't true. I just wanted to get some responses that I thought would be funny. I needed an angle. I ended up stupidly sending a letter to Charles Manson, a letter to John Hinckley Jr., and the President of the United States all in the same day, so instantly the Secret Service was on my ass. When it was all said and done the Secret Service said they knew where I ate, where I went to work, where my parents lived, every inch of the day they knew exactly where I was. They had the phone tapped - it was just ridiculous and I had no clue."

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"The weird thing was that I actually did get a response from Michael Eisner, who said he'd love to help me with my report but Euro-Disney was opening in three weeks and he had no time," continues May. "I had sent a letter to David Letterman and I set my timer [on my VCR] because [the letter] was just too crazy, he might actually answer [it] on viewer mail. And he did, one time when I had my VCR set to tape him. He saved my ass because when the Secret Service finally started to end their investigation of me I said, 'Look I've got proof that I didn't just send this to these wackos, I sent this letter to Letterman and he answered it on the air.' I had to turn that tape over to show them that I wasn't some Hinckley conspirator. Twelve people are allowed to send him letters and somehow mine slipped through and he though it was funny and kept the letter."

"The last thing that the Secret service guy told me was, 'Congratulations, you'll never get a government job.' The White House sent me a map of the White House. Is that something you'd want to send?"

Check back soon for part two of our Don May Jr. profile.