Larry Fessenden’s 1997 vampire film Habit started the director on a challenging course to make a film using every monster. His sea creature film, Beneath, graced screens in 2013, and his Frankenstein film Depraved came out in 2019. Now, with Blackout, the horror icon offers the film he’s wanted to make for years to the Fantasia 2023 audience.
The film, like most of Fessenden’s features, is set somewhere in New York and concerns a painter who’s convinced he’s causing chaos in a small town during the full moon. Charley (Alex Hurt) is set to expose the corruption of a land developer (Marshall Bell) while trying to get back in the good graces of his daughter (Addison Timlin). When a Latino construction worker gets blamed for Charley’s actions during the full moon, the town’s desire to punish the innocent man plateaus as Charley begins to transform again.
Fessenden has long brought themes of ecological and social injustices forth in his work, and Blackout looks like a trip down a similar rabbit hole. Joining him in the film are long-time collaborators like Barbara Crampton (Jacob’s Wife, We Are Still Here), James LeGros (Stray Bullets, The Last Winter), Kevin Corrigan (Stray Bullets, The Last Winter), Joe Swanberg (Depraved, All the Light in the Sky), among others.
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