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Elijah Drenner is a Los Angeles-based documentary filmmaker and one of the leading independent producers of Blu-ray/DVD bonus content and Electronic Press Kits.  His work has covered a diverse range of filmmakers including Orson Welles, David Cronenberg, John Ford, The Coen Brothers, Roger Corman, Hal Ashby, Herschell Gordon Lewis, William Friedkin, Josef von Sternberg, Paul Verhoeven, Jess Franco, Brian De Palma, Lina Wertmüller and many more. Drenner’s work can be found on The Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, Shout! Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video and other specialty labels.

Beside retrospective documentaries on classic films, he has also produced EPKs and Bonus Features for such contemporary productions as The Forbidden Kingdom, The Automatic Hate, Take Me To The River, The Pact 1 & 2, At The Devil’s Door, Traders, Emilie, Stake Land II and the famed BBC mini-series Pride and Prejudice.

His first feature-length documentary, American Grindhouse, made its world premiere at SXSW Film Festival in 2010. Narrated by Robert Forster, the film traces the history of the American exploitation film from the dawn of the motion picture industry to present day. The documentary features a smorgasbord of exploitation cinema’s most notorious films – and the filmmakers who made them. The film was released by Lorber Films and is currently available on DVD, iTunes, and Amazon Prime.

In 2014, Drenner premiered his second documentary, That Guy Dick Miller, once again at SXSW.  With this film, Drenner pays tribute to one of the hardest-working character actors, and offers viewers an intimate look into the private and professional life of one of Hollywood’s most beloved performers. The film features exclusive interviews with all of Miller’s closest collaborators from his more than 60 years in the business, as well as his brothers and devoted wife, Lainie, who also produced with Drenner. The film was acquired by IndieCan Entertainment for North American distribution in 2015 and is currently available on DVD, iTunes, Amazon Prime, and various On-Demand outlets.

That Guy Dick Miller (2014)

Dick Miller is the last of the great American character actors.

Whether sharing the screen with Nicholson, DeNiro, Schwarzenegger or The Ramones, Dick has been stealing scenes since his screen debut in 1955. He has worked with some of the great directors: Scorsese, Corman, Fuller, Dante, Cameron, Demme and more.

Every moviegoer knows his face, but few know his name and even fewer know his story – an aspiring writer turned accidental actor. For the first time, Dick Miller has allowed filmmakers incredible access to his life and home for this funny and unexpected story. Joining him are the directors, producers, co-stars and friends who have helped make him Hollywood’s leading “that guy.”

Visit TGDM Website

American Grindhouse (2010)

The feature-length documentary American Grindhouse explores the hidden history of the American Exploitation Film. The movie digs deep into the often overlooked category of U.S. cinema and unearths the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of this popular entertainment. Exploitation Cinema has left an indelible mark on American culture, and this informative and amusing documentary proves that its principles – and popularity – endure to this day.

Narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor Robert Forster, this documentary boasts exclusive interviews with filmmakers Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, Jack Hill, Fred Williamson, John Landis and many, many more – many of them speaking out in their first-ever on-camera interviews. Bursting with clips and scenes from more than 200 of the most jaw-dropping movies ever screened, American Grindhouse is poised to be the most comprehensive motion picture on the subject of Exploitation Cinema.

ELIJAH DRENNER | Producer • Editor

I began my career  producing, directing and editing bonus material for DVDs and eventually Blu-rays. Here is the complete list of these projects that I’ve worked on:

2007

• Spider Baby: Director’s Cut (Dark Sky Films)                                                                                                                                  

2008

• Games Girls Play & Linda Lovelace For President (Dark Sky Films)

• The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate)

• Delinquent Schoolgirls & Mondo Keyhole (VCI)

2009

• The Centerfold Girls & Horror Hospital (Dark Sky Films)

• Wise Blood (Criterion)

• Sleepless, The House By The Cemetery, Macabre  & Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat (Arrow Films)

2010

• Blood River (Revolver Entertainment)

• Bonnie’s Kids (Dark Sky Films)

2011

• Astro Zombies, The 4-D Man, Gallery of Horrors, Message From Earth & Dinosaurus! (Subkultur Entertainment)

• Take A Hard Ride, Streetwalkin’, Too Hot To Handle & The Women In Cages Collection (Shout! Factory)

• The Baby, The Stunt Man & Bloody Birthday (Severin Films)

2012

• The Nurses Collection (Shout! Factory)

• Octaman (Media Target)

• Night of The Grizzly (Olive Films/Paramount)

• The Pact (IFC Films)

• The Punisher (Koch Media/Marvel)

• Scanners (Subkultur Entertainment/MGM)

• Female Vampire, House of Whipcord, The Comeback, Schizo & Die Screaming, Marianne (Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

2013

• Mission: Killfast, The Doll Squad & Fanny Hill (Vinegar Syndrome)

• Flesh + Blood & Spetters (Koch Media/MGM)

• The Awful Dr. Orlof & A Virgin Among The Living Dead (Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

2014

• Pride & Prejudice: Keepsake Edition (Lionsgate/BBC)

• The Flesh & Blood Show, Frightmare, House of Mortal Sin & Home Before Midnight (Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

• Ms. 45 (Drafthouse Films)

• Death Spa (Gorgon Video)

• Sugar Cookies, Graduation Day & Raw Force (Vinegar Syndrome)

• Curse of The Crimson Altar (Odeon Entertainment)

• Elmer Gantry, White Lightning, Gator, More Dead Than Alive, Sam Whiskey & The Quatermass Xperiment (KL Studio Classics/MGM)

• At The Devil’s Door & The Pact 2 (IFC Midnight)

2015

• Billy Two-Hats, Burnt Offerings, Busting, Cherry 2000, Cops & Robbers, Deranged, Dr. Goldfoot and The Bikini Machine, Dr. Goldfoot and The Girl Bombs, F.I.S.T., Foxes, F/X, House of 1,000 Dolls, House of The Long Shadows, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, Madhouse, Modern Girls, The Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, Truck Turner, The Onion Field, Vigilante Force, War Gods of The Deep, “X” The Man with X-Ray Eyes & Zone Troopers (KL Studio Classics/MGM)

• The Roommates/A Woman for All Men & Bonnie’s Kids/The Centerfold Girls (Gorgon Video)

• The Big Switch/Man of Violence (Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

• The American Dreamer, Catch My Soul & Some Call It Loving (Etiquette Pictures)

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension, Eaten Alive & Videodrome (Arrow Video/Universal/MGM)

• Demonoid, Frightmare (aka The Horror Star) & Nightmare Weekend (Vinegar Syndrome)

2016

• Switchblade Sisters (Subkultur)

• Blue Sunshine (FilmCentrix)

• The Frontier (Kino Lorber)

• Hangs Upon Nothing (Etiquette Pictures)

• The Automatic Hate & Take Me To The River (Film Movement)

• The Bees, Dolemite, Disco Godfather, Evils of The Night, Hellbent, Horror House on Highway Five, The Human Tornado, Jack Frost, Luther The Geek, Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s Son In Law, Pigs & Psychic Killer (Vinegar Syndrome)

• Deathgasm (Dark Sky Films, US + Tiberius Films, DE)

• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Emelie & Traders (Dark Sky Films)

• Hannie Caulder, High Noon, Johnny Guitar, Macbeth, The Night of The Grizzly & The Quiet Man (Olive Signature/Paramount)

• American Ninja, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt & American Ninja 4: The Annihilation  (Olive Films/MGM)

• School For Sex/Hot Girls For Men Only (Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

• 100 Rifles, Biggles: Adventures in Time, Cabo Blanco, Candy, Cop, Doomwatch, Fuzz, Highway To Hell, Luna, The Laughing Policeman, Modesty Blaise, Panic In Year Zero!, The Pit, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Up The Creek, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo, Wolf Lake, Yellow Sky & Yongary: Monster From The Deep. (KL Studio Classics/MGM/20th Century Fox/Paramount)

• The American Horror Project Vol. 1, Dillinger, Matinee, Microwave Massacre, Pray for Death, Rage of Honor, Sheeba Baby, Shock and Gore: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Suture, The Swinging Cheerleaders & Vamp (Arrow Video/MGM/Universal)

2017

• Anatahan, Seven Beauties & Swept Away (Kino Lorber)

• The Ambulance (Koch Media, DE)

• Catfight (MPI Media)

• Stake Land II: The Stakelander (Glass Eye Pix/Dark Sky Films)

• 8 Million Ways To Die, Barton Fink, The Birthday Party, Chamber of Horrors, Code of Silence, Coronet Blue, Curse of The Pink Panther, Duel In The Sun, Freeway, Funny Bones, The Good Son, Hell In The Pacific, The Hunting Party, The Indian Runner, The Long Riders, The Mephisto Waltz, No Retreat / No Surrender, Night People, No Man’s Land, One Million Years B.C., The Paradine Case, Rawhead Rex, Scavenger Hunt, Silkwood, SpaceCamp, Stone Cold Dead, Those Daring Young Men and Their Jaunty Jalopies, The Wanderers & Z.P.G. (KL Studio Classics/Paramount/MGM/20th Century Fox/Disney)

• The Apartment, Brain Damage, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Climber, George A. Romero: Between Night and Dawn, J.D.’s Revenge, Pieces, Madhouse, Raising Cain and Re-Animator (Arrow Video/MGM/Universal)

• RoboCop 2 & RoboCop 3 (Scream Factory/MGM)

• Parents (Vestron/Lionsgate)

• The Corpse Grinders, The Hearse, My Chauffeur, Orgy of The Dead & Psycho Cop Returns (Vinegar Syndrome)

• Castle Keep, The Deadly Affair, Experiment in Terror, Fragment of Fear, The Stone Killer, The Sinbad Trilogy and The Wonderful Worlds of Ray Harryhausen: Volumes 1 and 2 (Powerhouse Films/Sony UK)

• Hard Times (Eureka/Sony UK)

• Father Goose, Letter From an Unknown Woman, A New Leaf and Operation Petticoat (Olive Signature/Paramount)

2018

• Bound & Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Olive Signature/Paramount)

• Creepshow, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation & Sleepwalkers (Scream Factory/Sony/Warner Bros)

• Maximum Overdrive (Vestron/Lionsgate)

• Gas, Food, Lodging (Arrow Academy/Sony)

• Mr. Capra Goes to War (Olive Films)

• Get Mean (Koch Films DE)

• Penitentiary, Penitentiary II & Cutting Class (Vinegar Syndrome)

• The Endless, Heathers & The Last House on the Left (Arrow Video/MGM/Laskeshore International)

• Night of the Demon, The Collector, Modern Romance & Oleanna (Powerhouse Films/Sony UK)

• Luther, The Banishment, The Return & The Sacrifice (Kino Lorber)

• Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Bad Company, The Big Country, Cabin Boy, The Cemetery Club, Color of Night, Crossing The Bridge/Indian Summer, The Day After, Deep Rising, A Fistful of Dynamite (aka Duck, You Sucker), Good Times, The Grissom Gang, The Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection, The Martian Chronicles, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler, Oscar, Seven, The Thomas Crown Affair & The Trilogy of Terror (KL Studio Classics/MGM/Disney)

2019

• Bitter Moon, Bounty Man, Green Card, Dinosaurus!, The 4-D Man, The House That Would Not Die, Leon Morin – Priest, Le Doulus, Mirage, My Boyfriend’s Back, Nightmare in Badham County,  Parasite, Phobia, She, Slayground, The Silent Partner, Street People, Unstrung Heroes, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Von Richthofen and Brown & Zachariah (KL Studio Classics/Disney/StudioCanal)

• A Bucket of Blood & The Bells of St. Mary’s (Olive Signature/MGM/Paramount)

• Passolini, Last Year at Marienbad and The Mountain (Kino Lorber)

• Being John Malkovich, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, The Loveless, RoboCop, The Sender, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, In The Aftermath, My Name is Julia Ross & So Dark the Night                                                                                              (Arrow Video/Sony/Paramount/Universal/Lakeshore)

• Birdy, Black Joy, Bloody Terror: The Shocking Cinema of Norman J. Warren, Gardens of Stone, Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg at Paramount: 1930 – 1935, Psyche ’59, R.P.M., Scum, Track 29 & The Triple Echo (Powerhouse Films/Handmade Films/Sony UK)

• Amityville: The Cursed Collection, Beyond the Door III (aka Amok Train), Beyond Evil, Party Line, Uninvited, The Vineyard & Wacko (Vinegar Syndrome)

2020

Cannibal Apocalypse, Je t’aime… moi non plus & Ulzana’s Raid (KL Studio Classics/Universal/StudioCanal)

 

     I have also produced and edited original content for the following clients:

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