David Del Valle

David Del Valle died on 4 November 2026 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He was 77. His caregiver and friend, producer Dano Marino, told The Hollywood Reporter that Del Valle had been battling esophageal cancer. Trade and fan outlets confirmed the news in the days that followed. Severin Films and other labels that had worked with him posted tributes recalling his commentaries and companionship.

Ronald David Del Valle was born on 24 September 1949 in El Paso, Texas, an only child. He discovered Universal horror films at four or five, watching Lon Chaney Jr. as the Mummy and Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and as a high school student spent nights at the drive in watching triple features, especially Vincent Price. After his parents divorced he moved with his mother, an Arthur Murray dance instructor, through Florida, Wisconsin and elsewhere before settling in Sacramento. At Encina High School, aged sixteen, he interviewed Price when the actor came to town with a play, beginning a friendship that lasted until Price's death in 1993. He later attended San Francisco State University, leaving in 1974 to pursue writing on horror and cult cinema.

Del Valle built a career as a journalist and historian of fantastic film. He wrote for Video Watchdog, Cinefantastique, Scarlet Street, Fangoria, Cult Movies, Diabolique, Kinoeye, Little Shoppe of Horrors and The Dark Side, served as West Coast correspondent for L'Ecran Fantastique, and contributed to Poland's Fantastyka. As Hollywood correspondent for Films and Filming (1983-1987) he interviewed Roger Corman and Christopher Lee. His Camp David column ran on Films in Review from 2000 to 2016.

He produced and hosted Sinister Image, talking with Cameron Mitchell, Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington and others. His 1987 Vincent Price interview later appeared on Shout Factory's The Vincent Price Collection. He produced interviews for the 1994 documentary Vincent Price: My Life and Crimes and in 2020 hosted Haunted Hollywood for Full Moon Features. Beginning with a 1983 laserdisc commentary on Daughters of Darkness, he recorded more than eighty tracks. He worked for Cannon Films, acted as a talent agent for horror performers, was casting director on From a Whisper to a Scream (1987), curated Nevermore in 2006, and published two BearManor Media books. In 2016 he was inducted into the Rondo Monster Kid Hall of Fame.

Friends remembered Del Valle for a wicked sense of humour and a gift for storytelling. He lived for many years in the Los Angeles area, including on Harold Way. His partner Chris died in the early 2000s. In later years producer Dano Marino was his caregiver and close friend and became the steward of Del Valle's large collection of posters, photographs and rare books. Colleagues at Severin Films and across the home video community spoke of him as both a friend and an essential contributor to classic horror preservation.

Del Valle leaves a body of interviews, columns, books and more than eighty audio commentaries that remain in circulation on Blu ray and streaming editions of classic and cult films. His Sinister Image conversation with Vincent Price is still cited as a primary document of the actor's late career reflections. Fans and fellow historians remember him as a Monster Kid who never lost the drive in thrill that first drew him to horror, and who spent decades making sure those stories stayed alive for everyone else.