Genre veteran Kier-La Janisse — director of Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, author of House of Psychotic Women, and creator of Shudder’s The Haunted Season — is adding film distributor to her long list of accolades.
Spectacular Optical, the indie publishing imprint Janisse founded in 2014, is expanding into theatrical, streaming, and home video distribution.
Launching this month, the label will release new films and restored titles curated by Janisse with a focus on landscape and design, music and counterculture, and experimental genre works.
Spectacular Optical’s first release will be A Year in a Field, Christopher Morris’ 2023 documentary chronicling a year in the life of a 4,000-year-old Cornish standing stone. It hits VOD on April 22 in celebration of Earth Day, with a Blu-ray to follow.
The company’s upcoming slate also includes Waris Hussein’s 1971 romantic dramedy Melody, Bert Deling’s 1975 underground drama Prue Shit, Andrew Horn’s 1984 melodrama Doomed Love, Paul Wright’s 2017 folk-horror-infused documentary Arcadia, and Don Levy’s 1967 experimental film Herostratus.
“After decades of writing and film programming, there are certain films that never leave me,” said Janisse. “And though I’m known most for my explorations in genre, what inspires me is a broad cross-section of multidisciplinary work. And so this label is very personal to me, not so much a commercial enterprise as a dedicated compulsion to share films that have moved me – or even changed me – with a wider audience.”
All Spectacular Optical titles will be available theatrically, on digital, and on physical media. Wide distribution of home video releases will be handled in the US by Severin Films, where Janisse also serves as an acquisitions executive.
