Behold, the first trailer for the upcoming film, The Demonatrix!
A priest comes to the aid of his good friend and neighbor, a dominatrix when she accidentally summons an incubus demon.
Starring Hannah Fierman (VHS / Siren) and Aurelio Voltaire (The Velocipastor / Nosferatu), with Doug Bradley (Hellraiser), Larry Fessenden (Killers of the Flower Moon / Jacob’s Wife), Nivek Ogre (Repo-The Genetic Opera) and Jeff Ferrell (Ghostlight).
Written and directed by Aurelio Voltaire and Jeff Ferrell. With make up effects by Norman Cabrera (Hellboy / Ghostbusters: Afterlife / Star Trek Beyond)
Be sure to check out GEP pal Motell Foster twice before the Thanksgiving holiday in 2 different works:
Alonso Ruizpalacios’s LA COCINA unspools today & tomorrow at Angelika Village East. Starring Raúl Briones, Rooney Mara, Anna Diaz, Oded Fehr and Motell Foster. Get your tix!
Amy Berryman’s WALDEN at the Tony Kiser Theater in NYC. Catch the performance before it’s gone! On stage until Nov 25. Get your tix.
Glass Eye knows Foster well, lending his talents in Jack Fessenden’s FOXHOLE and Larry Fessenden’s BLACKOUT. Now streaming and available on Blu-Ray.
Larry Fessenden is a producer, director, and the founder of Glass Eye Pix. Above all, he is a lover of cinema and not afraid to get involved in the technical process and do the work. In fact, he prefers it. A performer in his own right, when Larry isn’t making films, he’s starring in them. In many ways, Larry is a local legend and icon of the horror genre. His career spans over 40+ years and 20+ films throughout which he has earned a spirit award and acknowledgment from the Criterion Collection. His production company Glass Eye Pix, has not only been a film school of sorts for successful directors like Ti West, he’s even invested in their earlier work. Larry is a fascinating case study of what it takes to make your film when you’re up against all the odds. His process is his and he doesn’t claim to have the right one either but he’ll fight you tooth and nail for it. Literally.
Thanks to the folks at Wrap Drinks for having me on— LF
On Sunday, October 20, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival honored Larry Fessenden with the Leviathan Award. The ceremony took place before a screening of his 1997 film Habit and a post-show Q&A. The award is BHFF’s only tribute award, created in 2023 to honor the luminaries of horror for their contributions to the genre. The event was moderated by filmmaker Jennifer Wexler. Wexler previously worked at Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix and fell into an effortless rapport with the man of the hour.
Upon receiving his award, Fessenden explained what it meant to be recognized by the festival. He said, “It is a struggle making these movies. My films are not quite horror, and they are not quite fancy indie movies. They have never been to fancy festivals. So what matters is you guys…the audience, and the fans. It means a great deal to be recognized by the Brooklyn Horror Festival. It is really meaningful to me.”
He joked, “I am not really getting emotional, but in concept, I am very touched by this.”
Always one to share the spotlight, Larry Fessenden told the packed theater that he accepted the award on behalf of all the great people he has worked with over the years. He explained, “The word mentorship is thrown around a lot, but what really happens is I find people with great passion, with a vision of what horror can be.”
Fessenden cited Wexler’s seven films made at his company. He then continued, “I accept [this] for all of the people who have come through our pipeline. We are there to celebrate individual voices in the arts. The individuality to go up against the sort of corporate blandness…and get everyone out the door so they can go make some money.” Fessenden and Wexler were then handed Blood Bags, the specialty drink Nitehawk Cinema conjured up for the event, before leaving the audience to watch Habit on the big screen.
Habit sees Fessenden step up as writer-director-star, which is not uncommon in his work. In the film, he plays a down-on-his-luck guy named Sam who just lost his dad and is still navigating a recent breakup. As he self-medicates at a party, he meets a woman named Anna (Meredith Snaider), and sparks begin to fly. However, it soon becomes clear that Anna wants Sam’s body in more ways than he bargained. This sets Sam spiraling even further as he realizes love bites, and that he might be hooking up with a vampire.
This indie movie set in 1995 New York has all the markings of a Larry Fessenden project. It’s a no-frills film that feels personal and is unafraid to explore sexuality and violence. To further set it apart from most movies, it denies the audience the traditional boring happy ending. Habit also has a monster that is a person first and foremost, which is another signature of the filmmaker’s work. Instead of going for over-the-top creatures, Fessenden is known for using monstrous traits to investigate the human condition.
Jennifer Wexler brought clips of the 1984 short Habit to compare with the feature-length version, allowing the audience to see how they differed. She used the short version as a jumping-off point to ask Larry about his knack for using monsters to explore real-world issues. He acknowledged that the short film was not great, but it was the seed he needed for what has become his personal mission. Fessenden explained, “It was the beginning of my instance that you can make monster movies, in the every day, in a personal way about personal problems. I have been on that mission ever since.” He elaborated, “My films are philosophical horror movies dealing with some of the old questions through a modern lens.”
Because Wexler has known Fessenden for years, she knew how to get the good stories out of the beloved horror icon. Between the two of them laughing like kids who snuck into the adult table at a holiday meal, he told the packed theater scandalous stories. For example, Larry shared that they saved filming the scene where he dangled from a window for the last day. Just in case it was the last thing he ever did.
He also joked, “I really want to stress, I never wanted to exploit anyone. So, we did not pay anyone one single penny because I never wanted them to feel they were being underpaid.” However, when he won an award that gifted him $10,000, he gave it to the crew that made Habit possible.
Wexler also asked Fessenden how advertising Habit landed him and a friend in jail. This is when Larry Fessenden told possibly the funniest story of the evening. He began, ”We’re postering, as you do, on the street, and the cops come up. It was illegal to do that. So, they grabbed us and said, ‘Is there anything you want to get rid of before we bring you into the station?’, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is he talking about? Oh shit, the reefer in my pocket.’”
Fessenden continued, “We were already handcuffed, but they kind of [knew]. So, we are driving around, and they say, ‘So…we have an idea for a Sundance movie.’” When the laughter died down he continued, “They threw us in jail, and at the time, I had Habittrading cards, which was my way of promoting the picture. I gave them to all the inmates, as we were all in the cell together. I even got the cops to do a selfie.”
As a fan of Larry Fessenden’s movies and video games, I love hearing him talk about his work at festivals. This time was extra special because I finally crossed Habit off my watchlist. He’s worked in the genre since 1979, so many millennials are playing catch-up with his back catalog. I know I’m not the only one who was geeked to see it for the first time with Fessenden in the building to talk aboutthe process of making the film. Because Fessenden has never been afraid to lay bare his personal feelings in his art, the film holds up. It is also still remarkably timely and relatable all these decades later. I highly recommend you catch Habit, which is currently free to stream on Sling TV and is available to AMC+ subscribers.
I am still riding the high from this evening with Jennifer Wexler and Larry Fessenden. However, you can catch me at @misssharai if you watched Habit for the first time this year and have also been changed for good.
With a framing device reminiscent of Tom Holland’s “Fright Night” and a hyperactive score, “The Roost” is a minimalist horror movie with more ambition than resources. Lovingly written and directed by Ti West, a novice filmmaker drunk on splatter and decomposing flesh, the movie treads a well-worn path as four friends (Karl Jacob, Sean Reid and real-life siblings Wil and Vanessa Horneff) find themselves stranded at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. There are bats in the barn, zombies under the floorboards and more agitated strings on the soundtrack than on a Celine Dion album. But the rules of the genre are clear: form a line and prepare to be slaughtered. Though the premise is rough, and the acting rougher — most members of the cast improve enormously as soon as gore is substituted for dialogue — “The Roost” proceeds with such youthful enthusiasm that its rawness is more charming than annoying. (Less appealing are the television-friendly breaks that halt the action at crucial moments.) Creatively shot and framed by the cinematographer Eric Robbins, who constructs gorgeously lighted centerpieces surrounded by strips of menacing black, the movie almost overcomes its low budget and threadbare plot. Almost.
“MaXXXine” clearly demonstrates West’s boundless flair for a sleazy image and his commitment to depicting the insistent tug between puritanism and pornography. Wise to the sexism of the industry, he shows its consequence in the growing ruthlessness of Maxine’s ambition. As the soundtrack grinds out Frankie Goes to Hollywood and ZZ Top, West and his skilled cinematographer, Eliot Rockett, emulate the tacky aesthetics of the sexed-up ‘B’-thrillers that proliferated at the time, painting a classy glaze around the movie’s trashy heart. Making inspired use of a deglamorized Hollywood Boulevard and the back lot of Universal Studios, Rockett ensures that his cool tracking shots and throbbing, almost slimy blobs of neon and shadow are as essential to Maxine’s story as any line of dialogue.
Goth is, as usual, sublime. In “Pearl,” she played a fresh-faced ingénue whose dashed dreams curdle into insanity, and we wonder if Maxine is on the same path. Especially when we recall the Bette Davis quotation that West plants early in “MaXXXine”: “Until you’re known in my profession as a monster, you’re not a star.” Building on its predecessors, “MaXXXine” is telling us that the real monster is not a knife-wielding nutjob, but ambition itself.
From Bloody Disgusting: Chris Skotchdopole wrote and directed Crumb Catcher, with story by Skotchdopole, Larry Fessenden, Rigo Garay, and Doppelgänger Releasing will unleash the film in select theaters on July 19, 2024.
In Crumb Catcher, “Newlyweds Shane and Leah have their marriage tested when two weirdos with entrepreneurial zeal and a half-baked blackmail plot crash their honeymoon — they’re looking for investors for their latest invention and won’t take no for an answer.”
Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, Lorraine Farris, andJohn Speredakos star in the home invasion horror movie that premiered at last year’s Fantastic Fest. Producers include Chadd Harbold, Larry Fessenden, Brian Devine, Bonnie Timmermann, and James W. Skotchdopole.
“It’s a weird thing to point a camera at if you’re not making ‘Psycho,’” says West, 43, as he heads farther into the darkness, lighted only by a handful of eerie red lanterns. He calls his trilogy “movie-flavored movies” — artifice and dreams are the top notes. “X” is about scrappy strivers trying to break into the business; “Pearl,” about the dangers of buying into the fantasies onscreen. “MaXXXine,” the highest-profile film of West’s career, wrestles with accepting that Hollywood isn’t quite what one hopes.
“He was ready to deal with this kind of scale, and it’s definitely something he was hungry for,” Goth says, chiming in over Zoom. In addition to playing multiple roles across this mini-franchise, Goth co-wrote “Pearl” and executive-produced the last two films. “We just kind of manifested it,” she continues, “built this entire trilogy into existence. And it’s been incredible to see it unfold.”
West, however, tends to be scrupulously anti-hype. “It is not lost on me that there is a meta thing happening with these movies and me and Mia, and that’s gratifying and strange,” he says. “And it’s also something that we’ve never taken any time to stop and talk about. We were too busy making movies.”
While the marketing team at A24 is all in on “MaXXXine” — “I’ve never had a billboard before,” the director beams — West has been a legitimate filmmaker for well over a decade. His resume of well-regarded independent movies includes the 2016 cowboy vengeance drama “In a Valley of Violence” with Ethan Hawke and John Travolta, plus a string of festival hits like 2009’s “The House of the Devil,” which disposed of a pre-celeb Greta Gerwig early on in a marvelously nasty Hitchcock-esque shock.
…
West spent his youth in Wilmington, Del., renting five VHS tapes for $5 on Fridays at his local video store. One weekend, he rented “Habit,” a grungy but brilliant microbudget vampire flick made by filmmaker Larry Fessenden. Shortly after, he moved to New York and took a film class taught by director Kelly Reichardt, who’d played a cameo in the film. Reichardt introduced the two and Fessenden became West’s mentor, eventually producing his debut feature, “The Roost,” shot exactly 20 years ago with more moxie than money.
MAXXINE (director Ti West) opens July 5 She’s a star. After Pearl‘s detour into the past, MaXXXine resumes the story of final girl Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) years after the bloody events of X. More dead-set (pun intended) on fame and fortune than ever, Maxine carves out a name for herself in the 1980s adult film industry. Simultaneously, the Night Stalker serial killer haunts Los Angeles. An all-star cast joins Goth for this third installment, including Emmy Award-winner Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Michelle Monaghan, Lily Collins, and Grammy Award-nominee Halsey.
Created by numerous GEP alums Ti West, Jacob Jaffke, Peter Phok, Eliot Rocket, Neal Jonas;Featuring Fessenden as “the guard”
CRUMB CATCHER (director Chris Skotchdopole) opens July 19
CRUMB CATCHER (director Chris Skotchdopole) Opens July 19 What happens when your wedding isn’t the happiest day of your life? Ask newlyweds Shane (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck), who barely have time to enjoy their honeymoon before an elderly married couple, John (John Speredakos) and Rose (Lorraine Farris), invade their remote cabin. After decades of entrepreneurial failure, the latter pair plan to fund their dreams through blackmail. Crumb Catcher is director Chris Skotchdopole‘s debut, who co-wrote the screenplay with Larry Fessenden and star Garay.
a Glass Eye Pix production created by numerous GEP pals.
Glass Eye Pix is the fierce independent NYC-based production outfit headed by award-winning art-horror auteur Larry Fessenden with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts. Read more...
