Table of Contents
If you’ve ever wandered into a dusty record store and stumbled upon a VHS or soundtrack you didn’t know you needed — odds are Brad Henderson had a hand in bringing it back. As co-founder of Terror Vision, Brad is part film historian, part punk rock preservationist, and all heart when it comes to rescuing the weird, wild, and wonderful corners of genre cinema.
Terror Vision is a boutique label with a mission: to preserve the madness, celebrate the obscure, and give new life to films that have slipped through the cracks. Whether it’s a long-lost slasher, an underloved regional oddity, or a warped synth-heavy soundtrack, Brad and the team are out there hunting it down and packaging it up with care.
I sat down with Brad — surrounded by his towering wall of physical media (yeah, it’s terrifying in the best way) — to talk about the art of curation, the thrill of rediscovery, and the DIY future of horror preservation.
Here’s our unfiltered chat.
Riva: Alright, so I’m walking in Savanah, and I stumble into Graveface records and I gravitate towards the DVD section where I uncover the madness that is Terror Vision. Can you walk me through how this concept came to be?
Henderson: Yeah, so Ryan ( the Ryan Graveface, responsible for Graveface records and co-founder and owner of Terror Vision) has been doing Graveface Records for like 20 years—tons of shoegaze and indie rock. One of his bands, The Appleseed Cast, was kind of a big deal. Around 10 years ago, he started Terror Vision to put out horror soundtracks. Originally, he wanted it to be a video label too, but didn’t have the budget.
Q: You have a passionate voice for obscure and unappreciated horror. Can you speak about how you two linked up? I'd also love to hear what pulled you into home video and restoration?
Brad: As for me, I’d already been in home video for almost a decade. I love curating stuff, love programming. I was doing quarterly movie marathons—14-hour things with friends. Eventually, I met Ryan in 2020 and we hit it off. I was working at Vinegar Syndrome at the time, and they were creating a system to help new labels start. We did six releases through them, then Ryan and I just decided to do our own thing. Now I handle acquisitions, restoration, here at Terror Vision, working with filmmakers, producing features, the whole deal.
Riva: I think deep down, we all have a genuine love for programming or showing new films to friends who have yet to experience them. What do you find most rewarding about the process?
Brad: I just love telling people what to watch. It’s kinda like… the biggest crime in movies is that you can’t watch something for the first time again. But if you're with someone and you get to see them experience it for the first time—that’s magic. That’s part of why I love this. Programming festivals, doing those long marathons, that’s always been part of who I am.
Q: Talk about experiencing a film for the first time, your Dante’s Inferno restoration (L'Inferno, 1911) totally caught me off guard—it’s so loaded. How’d that one come together?
Brad: Oh, thanks! That one’s super personal. It’s the first feature-length horror movie ever made. I watched it when I was young, had to dig to even find it. Not like now where you just pull it up on YouTube. I started messing with it, putting doom metal over it. It actually worked!
So for the release, I wanted to go all in. Four different versions of the movie, three new scores—one from Haley (she’s on Graveface), one from a YouTuber I found named Michael Kiker, and one from Laurent Pigeolet . Then we brought in James L Neibaur, who’s a silent film historian, for the commentary. I want our releases to feel like a class—but a fun one, not dry. Just packed.
Riva: I love that you're providing so many options to experience these works of art in new ways. I can only imagine the process of finding these films and restoring them can’t be easy. What’s the real headache when you dive into these restoration projects?
Brad: Rights. Always rights. Like, who owns this thing? Sometimes it’s a filmmaker who made one movie and disappeared. Then, once you’ve got that sorted, you have to find the actual film materials. They might be in some archive. Or maybe in a moldy box in a garage. It’s a toss-up.
And then the restoration itself is super hands-on. We don’t use AI—it’s frame-by-frame. So, you could spend a whole week fixing five seconds of footage.
Riva: But you guys aren’t just looking at old films, you guys are working to produce new stuff too, right?
Brad: Yeah, we do both. Like, Frogman did really well for us, so we helped fund the sequel—Frogman Returns. That one’s shot and done, we’re just finishing VFX. We’ve got a couple docs we’re helping finish too. One of them was made by someone who’s not even a filmmaker, just passionate. So yeah, we’re making more stuff now.
Q: Let’s say someone’s got a short or a feature they think might be a goof fit for the Terror Vision audience—how can they pitch it to you?
Brad: Just email us: terrorvisionvids@gmail.com. That goes to Ryan, and he forwards it to me if it makes sense. We get a ton of stuff—hundreds of emails—but I’ll usually watch a trailer or teaser. If it feels right, I’ll reach out.
Q: Where do you see Terror Vision in like, five years? What’s the dream?
Brad: I wanna be making 4 or 5 movies a year. We just bought a vinyl pressing plant too, so we’re doing records for indie bands and making it affordable. We don’t have investors—it’s all Ryan’s money—and anything we make goes right back into the next project. We keep it punk rock. Honest. Transparent.
Q: Any advice for someone who wants to do what you do—or just break in at all?
Brad: Don’t do it unless you really love it. It’s hard, expensive, and thankless. Take film restoration classes. Volunteer at the archives. Know what you’re getting into. A lot of people want to do this, and there are barely any jobs. But if you’re obsessed, like really obsessed, you’ll find a way.
Q: Alright, just for fun: what’s a movie you’d drop everything to restore if the rights landed in your lap tomorrow?
Brad: Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. For real. It’s so good. Just a total comfort movie for me. It never got a decent release. I’ve talked to people from the cast, and they all loved working on it. I’d kill to do that one properly.
To pitch a film to Terror Vision: Email terrorvisionvids@gmail.com
Interview by John Michael Riva Jr. for League of Filmmakers
