BROOKLYN 45 brings home TWO Audience Awards at the PANIC FEST 2023 Award Showcase!

Fessenden wins BEST ACTOR in a Feature Film and
Ted Geoghegan awarded BEST DIRECTOR.

See the full list of the 2023 Audience Awards Winners
HERE

2015 was a busy year for Fessenden, Glass Eye Pix and all our assorted GEP Pals. Here are some year-end showings on various Best-Of 2015 lists….

THE FESSENDEN COLLECTION Blu-ray Box set of 4 Fessenden Films

Bloody-Disgusting: BEST BLU-RAY COLLECTIONS OF 2015
“Scream Factory had an incredibly impressive year, both on their own and from their partnership with IFC. Through all those great releases one truly stood out for me and that was The Larry Fessenden Collection (my review).”

L.A. TIMES: BEST BLU-RAYS OF 2015
“The Larry Fessenden Collection” (Scream! Factory/IFC/Glass Eye Pix): One of the best arguments for the continued existence of physical media is this box set spotlighting the work of one of America’s most original horror auteurs. Fessenden has quietly put together a body of features, shorts and experiments that make more sense when they’re gathered all in one place than when they’re scattered.”

TALES SEASON 3 by Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid / A Glass Eye Pix Production

AV CLUB: STAFF PICKS
“Larry Fessenden lives and breathes horror. Besides writing and directing a box-set worth of his own indie scare fare, he’s also acted in any number of fright flicks, mentored young horror mavericks like Jim Mickle and Ti West, and worked on the screenplay for this year’s slasher-movie-inspired video game, Until Dawn. One of his most interesting contributions to the genre, however, is the horror podcast Tales From Beyond The Pale, whose third season premiered on Black Friday. Produced and developed by Fessenden with regular collaborator Glenn McQuaid, the series resurrects the radio drama of early last century: Each episode is a one-act horror play, gamely performed by voice talent both recognizable and not, and written/directed by various artists of the genre, with Fessenden dropping in before and after to play old-school host. The content varies in quality, but especially in tone: Some episodes aspire to the creaky theatrical style of an old Boris Karloff segment, while others are distinctly modern in adult subject matter and language. What links them all, beyond uniformly excellent sound design, is an earnest interest in using pure audio techniques—foley effects, dialogue, creepy music—to elicit unease and create a whole world within listeners’ ears. The best of the bunch, such as season one’s unnerving surgery story “The Conformation,” serve as good reminders that what you can hear and imagine is sometimes much scarier than what you can see. It’s not surprising that Fessenden, a one-man champion of all things frightening, would understand that better than most. [A.A. Dowd]”

DARLING by Mickey Keating / A Glass Eye Pix Production

Iconsoffright: TOP 10 HORROR MOVIES OF THE YEAR
“#1 DARLING is in no way for everyone, that’s one thing I’ll get out of the way when talking about the film that is easily my favorite film of the entire year and in all actuality, my favorite film in quite a few years. It’s a complete descent into madness, told through flashing lights, long moments without dialogue and a Polanski-heavy vibe that is sure to turn some genre fans off. With all of that being said though, it’s also very simply, a film so close to being a perfect piece of cinema that it feels like an important thing, watching it.”

WE ARE STILL HERE by Ted Geoghegan, featuring Fessenden

Rolling Stone: 10 Best horror movies of 2015
“A peculiar New England terror with Lucio Fulci in its veins, Ted Geoghegan’s wintry haunted-house film defies the tired affectations of the standard ghost story. Its isolated pair of couples are melancholy, middle-aged, and terribly offbeat (see: the possession of Larry Fessenden and the space case of Lisa Marie). The specters on hand are as likely to thrust charred hands through a body, as they are to ominously lurk. And it’s all tied to a Lovecraftian home, a beast of a structure whose walls are the canvas for one of 2015s finest splatter-filled finales. SZ”

UNTIL DAWN, writers Graham Reznick and Fessenden / Sony Playstation

Engadget: These are our favorite video games of 2015
“Supermassive Games’ PlayStation 4 debut is unlike any big-budget game I’ve played in ages. Rather than sticking a gun in my hand, it sat me down in a director’s chair and essentially told me to craft my own horror movie. It could’ve been disastrous, but Supermassive intrinsically gets what makes for a good horror flick: the unknown, atmosphere, killer writing, and great performances from (mostly) unknown actors.”

WE ARE STILL HERE, directed by Ted Geoghegan and starring Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Fessenden, Lisa Marie, and Monte Markham, hits DVD and Blu-Ray shelves today.

Available online and in stores, with the DVD available at Walmart and Target, the Blu-ray at Best Buy, or both at FYE stores!

“Why can’t Fessenden be in every movie? He’s channeling his best Nicholson here, complete with crazy eyes and electrified hair. Add the barren winter landscape to the mix and you’ve got a definite Shining vibe.”
— J.R. Kinnard, Sound on Sight

OPENS TODAY in SELECT THEATERS and on VOD

Twitch sat down with WE ARE STILL HERE cast members Barbara Crampton, Fessenden, Lisa Marie, and Andrew Sensenig, and they talked about everything from the gore in the movie to the possibility of sequels!

Read on for all the gory details from Twitch!

[Photo above, L-R: Andrew Sensenig, Ted Geoghegan, Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden, Travis Stevens, Lisa Marie, Karim Hussain. Set photos by Stacy Buchanan / Wicked Bird Media.]

We Are Still Here has been garnering enthusiastic reviews from its premiere at SXSW and subsequent screenings at Boston Underground Film Festival and the Stanley Film Festival, with other festival screenings to come. The film is currently playing a limited theatre run, and will be available on VOD on June 5th. You can read Peter Martin’s original SXSW review here. If you’ve missed the trailer, you can watch it below.

I was able to visit the set in freezing upstate New York in February 2014 and speak to cast members Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, and Andrew Sensenig.

TwitchFilm: Larry, how did you get involved with We Are Still Here?

Larry Fessenden: Ted (Geoghegan, director/writer) just asked me very casually at the bar if I would do it. Of course, I knew the executive producer, Greg Newman. I was excited tha Ted had gotten the green light, because I’ve known him for some time, and I said sure. Scheduling was a little more dicey, so I came in late to the shoot, but as a result, it was fun to see everyone already comfortable with each other and walk onto set get right into mayhem. We shot out of order, so the first stuff we did was the absolute craziest because we shot out of the house.

There’s lots of gore in the story.

READ ON…

As of this writing, WE ARE STILL HERE, featuring Fessenden, Barbara Crampton, and Andrew Sensenig, and directed by GEP-pal Ted Geoghegan, is getting tons of critical love! With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% fresh, it’s clear that WE ARE STILL HERE ain’t your average spook-show.

GEP Pal and WE ARE STILL HERE director Ted Geoghegan talked about how The Shining influenced his feature debut for EW. Read on for his thoughts on the horror classic, working in the shadow of such a masterpiece, and working with Fessenden on such a reminiscent piece.

From Entertainment Weekly:

… My love for The Shining runs so deeply that when writing and directing my debut feature, We Are Still Here, I had to step back from the project and decide just how much of the film’s influence we could allow onscreen. My film, which is set in the late 1970s and features a haunted, snowbound location that slowly traps its unwitting inhabitants, couldn’t simply rehash the beats of a masterpiece—but we knew we’d be doing our project a disservice to willfully ignore how perfectly Kubrick balanced his scares and teeth-gnashing tension. While the stylized nooks and corners of We Are Still Here’s New England homestead were a far cry from the labyrinthine halls of the Overlook Hotel, the mounting snowdrifts and desolate locale had created an environment too similar for our cast and crew to ignore. While many people have noted that horror director and We Are Still Here cast member Larry Fessenden bears a striking resemblance to Shining-era Nicholson, never had it been more clear to me than when trudging through the snow with him by my side, costumed in garb from 1979. Why, even our film’s supernatural antagonists, the ghostly Dagmar family, conjured up memories of the dreamlike ghouls that inhabit Kubrick’s hotel: strange, physical beings, somehow conjured up from the spirit world to terrify (and possibly warn) the living.

But by the end of our 21-day shoot (blissfully shy of Kubrick’s reported 230), I began to question whether it was the details of The Shining that had influenced me, or if the film was just so damn perfect that one couldn’t help but want to be associated with something similar. Being able to capture even the tiniest iota of the movie’s dark allure and spectacle seems to have become the dream of every genre director since it was opened May 23, 1980. There is, after all, a reason why both filmmakers and fans hold it in such high regard—because The Shining still engages, horrifies, and enchants like absolutely no other piece of cinema.

On June 5th, 2015, director Ted Geoghegan’s WE ARE STILL HERE will hit limited theaters and VOD, released by Dark Sky!

As Bloody-Disgusting reports, WE ARE STILL HERE “stars everyone’s favorite Barbara Crampton Re-Animator, You’re Next), as well as Andrew Sensenig (Upstream Color), Lisa Marie (Ed Wood), and Larry Fessenden (I Sell the Dead).” Check out the trailer and poster below!

“genre fans with a sense of history should make this entertaining chiller a sought-after item for midnight slots, and a welcome pickup for specialty home-format distribbers.”

…

“A rare horror exercise whose characters are nearly all well into middle age, “We Are Still Here” introduces the Sacchettis as they drive toward their new home in upstate New York in the dead of winter. Both are grieving the recent loss of their only child, Bobby, in a car accident, but hope the move will provide some distance from that tragedy for Anne (Barbara Crampton, “Re-Animator”) in particular, who’s clearly suffering from major depression. To the dismay of her husband, Paul (Andrew Sensenig), however, she immediately claims to feel Bobby’s “presence” in their new digs.”

more from Dennis Harvey’s Review at Variety.

The reviews are coming in for WE ARE STILL HERE, directed by GEP pal Ted Geoghegan, starring Barbara Crampton and Andrew Sensenig and featuring Lisa Marie, Fessenden, and Monte Markham!

“Geoghegan lets loose and delivers a satisfying and chilling climax
while balancing the gore and tension nicely.
…Crampton and Sensenig make for a believable couple.
They’re both wounded and dealing with it in different ways.
…As always, Larry Fessenden delivers a rock solid performance with finely tuned comedic beats.”
– Patrick Cooper, BLOODY-DISGUSTING

“Geoghegan establishes what seems to be a simple haunted house set-up
but adds complications which make the outcome less predictable…
The pleasantly mature Crampton and Sensenig underplay sensitively, giving a little depth to their plight.
…an afternoon séance raises the wrong ghost, allowing Fessenden
to do an impressive possessed act, and the film starts to take after the gorier efforts of the 1980s”
– Kim Newman, SCREEN DAILY

“We Are Still Here is the first incredibly scary and pure horror film of 2015.
There’s just nothing out there like it, and there hasn’t been in quite some time.
…We all should consider ourselves lucky that Barbara Crampton decided to resume her acting career
because this lady brings a lot to the table that’s been sorely missing.
with solid performances from the always great Larry Fessenden,
the wonderfully odd Lisa Marie, and the ever-frazzled Andrew Sensenig;
and we have a winner here, folks.”
– Steve Barton, DREAD CENTRAL 

“Writer/producer Ted Geoghegan makes an assured directorial debut
with the stylish and mesmerizing WE ARE STILL HERE.
…it’s an absolute pleasure to see Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Monte Markham,
and Larry Fessenden deliver note-perfect performances in substantial roles.”
– Peter Martin, TWITCH FILM

“It takes a special film and one that offers something different to the table
to not only revive the interest of the horror viewer, but the subgenre as a whole.
Thankfully, Ted Geoghegan’s WE ARE STILL HERE
is not only that something different that the genre needs,
but is also a wildly original and terrifyingly entertaining ride,
sure to be the most memorable genre film of the year.
…Lisa Marie and Larry Fessenden give two great performances as May and Jacob,
with Fessenden providing one of the scariest scenes in the entire film.”
– Jerry Smith, ICONS OF FRIGHT

“what elevates WE ARE STILL HERE even further is the way it manages,
from first line to very last, to imbue its exploration of the outer extremes of darkness and horror
with a real poignancy, heart and humanity.”
– Shawn Macomber, FANGORIA

Really enjoyed @tedgeoghegan‘s Fulci-inspired chiller WE ARE STILL HERE,
which as a bonus has the best Fessenden performance since HABIT.
erickohn @erickohn · INDIEWIRE