I recall attending a convention and seeing my first Severin booth, and thinking, “If I start buying these movies, I’m never going to stop.”

I can’t always predict the future all that well, but after my first purchase — Dr. Butcher M.D., in case you wondered — I keep buying something from this label almost every single month.

The films of Frederick R. Friedel set, which also includes Axe and Blood Brothers, are just one of many examples of why I love Severin. Not only have they taken a Video Nasty and a drive-in obscurity and made them look better than they ever have before, they’ve also found almost everyone that worked on these films, gotten their side of the story and explained what actually happened before, during and after they were filmed.

Jack Canon, who the credits erroneously refer to as the kidnapped co-ed, plays Eddie Matlock, who is really the kidnapper. He was also in Axe, Maximum Overdrive and Trucker’s Woman. As the film begins, he’s already taking Sandra Morely (Leslie Rivers) captive. Her father puts an enormous ransom out for her return, so other criminals are now after them both to try and get paid.

Also known as Date With a Kidnapper, this is 75 minutes of a movie where things just happen for no reason, with no set-up or explanation. Axe is a movie where nothing happens for long stretches of time, whereas this is the opposite: a movie where all kinds of things happen, and the Stockholm syndrome is in full effect — although the kidnapper isn’t truly the villain he seems to be at the beginning.

This film looks gorgeous, getting every cent of its budget on the screen, and was shot by Austin McKinney, who worked on all sorts of genre films, from shooting Boris Karloff’s four Mexican films (The Snake People, House of Evil, Isle of the Snake People and Alien Terror), Hot Summer in Barefoot County, Getting It On and Jaws 3-D to being part of the sound crew on Hellraiser III and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child to working on the special effects team on movies like Beastmaster 2, Escape from New York, Battle Beyond the Stars, Sorceress and The Terminator. He was even the uncredited editor for The Beast of Yucca Flats and the production manager for The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

You can get this from Severin.