David Del Valle, Admired Historian of Horror Films, Dies at 77

David Del Valle, the encyclopedic horror film historian, author and raconteur who contributed to dozens of laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray commentary tracks during his eclectic career, has died. He was 77. Del Valle died Wednesday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after a battle with esophageal cancer, his caregiver and friend, producer Dano Marino, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was living down the street from the apartment on Harold Way in Los Angeles where Dracula star Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack in 1956. “The only way out of Harold Way is apparently feet first,” he joked. Del Valle produced and hosted a series of cable TV interviews under the Sinister Image umbrella in which he spoke with the likes of Vincent Price, Cameron Mitchell, Russ Meyer and Curtis Harrington. His hourlong chat with Price in 1987 is considered the most substantial interview the horror legend ever gave. He also wrote the books Lost Horizons Beneath the Hollywood Sign and Six Reels Under, published in 2010 and 2012, respectively, and articles for Fangoria magazine; penned an online column called “Camp David” for Films in Review; and introduced a weekly screening of horror films in 2020 for the channel/app Full Moon Features. Del Valle’s 120 or so movie commentaries included those for such companies as the Criterion Collection (Count Yorga), Severin Films (Horrors of Spider Island, Bloody Pit of Horror, An Angel for Satan, Nightmare Castle), Kino Lorber (The Amazing Transparent Man, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head), Synapse Films (Suspiria), Scream Factory (The Fly) and Arrow Films. Del Valle knew personally most of the people he wrote and talked about and was known for his wicked sense of humor and skills as a storyteller. “He never wanted to grow up in all the most charming ways,” Marino said. An only child, Ronald David Del Valle was born on Sept. 24, 1949, in El Paso, Texas. He said his love of horror began with the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930s. After his parents divorced, he and his mother, an Arthur Murray dance instructor, moved around the country, living in Florida, Wisconsin and elsewhere before settling in Sacramento. Price became his favorite actor after frequent trips to the drive-in, and while writing for the school newspaper at Encina High School, Del Valle, then 16, got to interview the star for the first time when Price came to town with a play. The two would remain close until Price’s death in 1993. Del Valle also appeared on the local TV show Creature Features, hosted by Bob Wilkins, around that time. After graduating from San Francisco State University, Del Valle interviewed Maniac Cop director-producer William Lustig in 1983, and their discussion was used on the laserdisc edition of the vampire classic Daughters of Darkness (1971). That opened up all kinds of doors for him. Del Valle also worked for Cannon Films, acted as a talent agent for those in the horror community and curated a 2006 L.A. photo exhibit devoted to the Edgar Allan Poe films of Price and Roger Corman. He appeared onscreen in such films as From a Whisper to a Scream (1987), Evil Bong 420 (2015) and Puppet Master: Axis Termination (2017) and with legendary Scream Queen Barbara Steele produced a 30th anniversary tribute to Dark Shadows that was released on home video in 1996. His longtime partner, Chris, died of HIV in the early 2000s. Marino said he will oversee Del Valle’s vast collection of movie memorabilia that includes posters, photos and rare books. “A champion of cinema’s outsiders, its supporting players, its many wondrous and magical figures and everything else it has in between, he was, and will remain, a legend,” Marino wrote on Facebook.