Patrick Bromley over at Daily Dead just wrote a review of THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION.

“If ever there was to be a Mt. Rushmore of modern horror, there’s no question that the face of Larry Fessenden would get prominent placement. One of the patron saints of indie horror, Fessenden is a true auteur and a true original whose incredible career is now being celebrated with the Scream Factory release of The Larry Fessenden Collection, containing four of his films and hours of bonus features that help illuminate just what a vital voice Fessenden has been in the genre for more than three decades. This is one of the best horror releases of the year … Scream Factory has done such great work with The Larry Fessenden Collection that it’s one of those rare cases where the supplemental content is every bit as good as the film(s) it’s supporting.”

Read on for the full review. 

Dread Central‘s Anthony Arrigo examines THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION.

“Fessenden is a man who makes deeply personal films, raw & full of emotion, with horror merely an undercurrent complicating already troubled lives. He fully embodies the auteur theory by writing, directing, editing and sometimes acting in his own films. And he’s actually a pretty decent actor, too. Everything seen on screen comes directly from his mind, with no compromises or studio interference. There’s a real sense of cinema verite to his work; his characters look and act like real people in real situations. This is personal, introspective filmmaking without pretense.”

Read on for the full review.

Joe Yanick of Diabolique Magazine wrote an extensive look back at the career of Fessenden through a review of THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION.

“Fessenden prefigured the style of horror cinema that would basically define the last decade. It’s smart, idea-driven work that pays homage to the history of horror rather than stick its nose up to it.”

Read on for the full review.

Over the past few days there has been a deluge of interviews, reviews, and features on Fessenden.
We’ve assembled snippets of each here, with links to the full pieces.

Larry Fessenden Is the Greatest Horror Film Director You’ve Never Heard Of
VICE.com

“I’ve worked pretty hard to get all these movies back under one roof—
I had to sort of rescue Wendigo from total obscurity. So that was a challenge.
I’m a collector-minded person, and none of my movies were on Blu-Ray,
and none of them had been well transferred onto DVD since their VHS days, either.
So I did it as an act of self-preservation.”

‘The Larry Fessenden Collection’ – 4 Films from the Mind of a Genius
Bloody-Disgusting.com

“What Scream Factory and IFC have put together makes for
one of my favorite Blu-ray releases of the year.
While I think each film holds up on their own individual merits,
there really is something special about watching them together as a collection.
You get to see a director morph in front of your eyes
and grow as a director while never once straying from his roots.”

Needing Bigger Boats: FFC Interviews Larry Fessenden
FilmFreakCentral.net

“When I was younger, one did buy into the theory of progress.
That we would invest in freedoms. Not George Bush freedoms,
but freedoms to flourish, freedom of sexual expression,
you know: freedoms. That we would take council from scientific discovery.
That we would stop putting DDT into our gardens.
But the way that we’re wired is so much more primitive.”

Fessenden on Festivals:
Indie Horror’s Larry Fessenden Reflects on the Fests that Shaped His Career
MovieMaker.com

“What I found discouraging was that at Sundance
they were not programming thoughtful horror films,
but just schlocky B-movies that played at midnight.
The genre was not being treated seriously,
it seemed to me, and as a result my aspirations
to elevate the horror film was being frustrated.”

Here’s What Happens When Great Indie Horror Directors Make a Video Game
Indiewire.com

“The unique voices of Fessenden and Reznick
come through clearly in the story.
Isolation is a theme both writers have circled
with an almost predatory focus in their previous work.”

Noel Murray of A.V. Club took a detailed look at THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION, out now on Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory.

From the A.V. Club Piece:

Digital media has its advantages—portability and durability chief among them—but there’s still no substitute for a good, extras-packed DVD or Blu-ray box set when it comes to putting important work into a larger context. The Scream! Factory/IFC Midnight/Glass Eye Pix co-production The Larry Fessenden Collection contains nice-looking transfers of four feature films by the New York art-horror impresario: 1991’s anti-vivisectionist Frankenstein riff No Telling; 1995’s vampire/addiction drama Habit; 2001’s man-vs.-nature monster movie Wendigo; and 2006’s global-warming eco-thriller The Last Winter. But just as important are the collection’s commentary tracks, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and samples of Fessenden short films and documentaries dating back to the late 1970s. There’s no easy way for a download or streaming video—or even a repertory retrospective—to replicate the archival quality of The Larry Fessenden Collection. It’s the ephemera gathered in this set that makes such a strong case for a filmmaker who’s often overlooked.

Read on for the full run-down.

FROM EW:

ike some rubber axe-wielding Howard Stern, filmmaker Larry Fessenden is fast becoming the King of All Horror Media. With frequent collaborator Graham Reznick he wrote the 10,000-page script for last August’s video game Until Dawn and he is currently overseeing the third season of his creepy audio drama series Tales From Beyond the Pale, with another longtime associate Glenn McQuaid.

As an actor, Fessenden’s recent credits include FX’s The Strain and the now-available-on-Blu-ray We Are Still Here as well as director Mickey Keating’s forthcoming fright machine Darling and Joe Begos’ telekenesis action-thriller, The Mnd’s Eye. Finally, today, Scream Factory is releasing The Larry Fessenden Collection, a Blu-ray set which rounds up the director’s first four films (No Telling, Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter) together with an impressive array of extras, not least the best animated short you’re ever likely to see about a werewolf Santa Claus.

And don’t forget — Today’s the release of THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION – collecting NO TELLING (1991), HABIT (1995), WENDIGO (2001), and THE LAST WINTER (2006) on Blu-Ray, with tons of special features, a 24-page book of liner notes, and more.

And see what Fessenden says is the scariest movie to watch this Halloween… all at Enteretainment Weekly

Denver-area GEP fans, Fessenden presents WENDIGO tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse in Littleton. For tickets and more information, visit the Event Page.

A modern classic, it takes a child’s eye view of adult violence and isolation with lyrical, sometimes frightening, results. Fessenden will be here with the film and advance copies of his upcoming box set, courtesy Shout! Factory.

Dread Central has details on the special features coming with Scream Factory’s release of THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION, which collects Fessenden’s NO TELLING, HABIT, WENDIGO, and THE LAST WINTER.

Scream Factory, in conjunction with IFC Midnight, will bring together four critically-acclaimed films by this multi-talented filmmaker with the release of the four-disc The Larry Fessenden Collection on Blu-ray on October 20, 2015. Marking the first time these films have been available on Blu-ray, The Larry Fessenden Collection includes No Telling, Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter and features new, director-supervised HD transfers. The first three hundred fans who pre-order their copies from ShoutFactory.com will have their slipcase signed by Larry Fessenden.

Read on for full details.

Dread Central posted news about a slew of events coming up for us here at Glass Eye Pix. Ever the busy-body, Fessenden will be hopping around with screenings and appearances this October to celebrate our 30th Anniversary.

From the Dread Central Post:

Production company Glass Eye Pix, founded by indie maven Larry Fessenden, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year; and numerous events are planned, including personal appearances by Fessenden, special screenings of GEP films, and lots more.

If you’re a fan of their particular breed of horror mayhem (and if you’re a regular reader of this site, you no doubt are), then read on for all the details!

From the Press Release:
On the delirious, dangerous streets of old New York, as young upstarts with names like Buscemi and Jarmusch rose to prominence, art-horror auteur Larry Fessenden birthed one of Gotham’s darkest icons of sovereign cinema. Called “one of the indie scene’s most productive and longest-running companies” by Filmmaker Magazine, Glass Eye Pix has been operated by Fessenden (THE LAST WINTER, WENDIGO, HABIT, NBC’s “Fear Itself”) since 1985, with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts.

In addition to countless shorts, three seasons of radio dramas, and one of 2015’s most acclaimed, best selling video games, Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix has been involved with over fifty critically acclaimed films in and out of the horror genre, including WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt), STAKE LAND (Jim Mickle), THE COMEDY (Rick Alverson), THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (Ti West), BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD (Rob Kuhns), LATE PHASES (Adrián García Bogliano), SATAN HATES YOU (James Felix McKenney), LIBERTY KID (Ilya Chaiken), and the forthcoming DARLING (Mickey Keating).

Founder Fessenden, who still oversees operations at Glass Eye, began his career acting and shooting super 8mm shorts, eventually moving on to long format videos, such as his 144-minute caper flick EXPERIENCED MOVERS (1985), the first film to bear the Glass Eye Pix moniker.

1991 Saw the production of Fessenden’s first original feature, NO TELLING, and in 1994 Glass Eye birthed what many consider the seminal NYC vampire film, HABIT. Fessenden’s subsequent award-winning films WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER inspired The New York Times to opine, “Fessenden approaches the themes and thrills of the classic American horror movies 
through a determinedly modern approach, as if John Cassavetes had been working for Universal in the early 30’s.”

Since the inception of Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden and co. have run a trans-media operation on a budget, producing movies, documentaries, performance art, comic books, audio dramas, soundtracks, trading cards, action figures, and a dedicated web presence since 1993. The recent success of the Sony PS4 video game UNTIL DAWN, written by Fessenden and longtime Glass Eye collaborator Graham Reznick, indicates that Glass Eye’s aesthetic of authenticity mixed with genre can inspire new generations of fright fans across all mediums.

To mark thirty years of fierce independence, Glass Eye Pix is celebrating with a series of special screenings and events this autumn. On October 4th Larry will appear at SpectreFest in Los Angeles for a special screening of HABIT, followed by a conversation, and from October 8-11 Fessenden will appear at New York Comic Con alongside numerous Glass Eye directors, collaborators, and friends. October 20th sees Shout! Factory’s heavily-touted Blu-ray release of “The Larry Fessenden Collection,” containing four of the director’s most acclaimed works remastered in high-definition. Titles include No Telling (1991), Habit (1995), Wendigo (2001), and The Last Winter (2006).

Additional events will be announced in October, including a retrospective at New York’s IFC Center, screenings in New York and Los Angeles, and a special showing of EXPERIENCED MOVERS in the same East Village bar where it was shot 30 years ago.

EW just shouted out some standout films to be shown at SpectreFest 2015, and also gave a nice nod to the upcoming THE LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION boxed set. The set, from Scream Factory, hits shelves October 20th, 2015 and includes NO TELLING, HABIT, WENDIGO, and THE LAST WINTER.

Here’s EW’s full announcement:

The lineup for this year’s SpectreFest was announced on Friday, and it includes a sneak peek of the upcoming Goosebumps movie, the Elijah Wood-starring horror-comedy Cooties, and a screening of actor-director Larry Fessenden’s influential 1997 vampire tale, Habit.

SpectreFest is curated by SpectreVision, the boutique horror film production company founded by Wood, Daniel Noah, and Josh C. Waller, whose films include Cooties and the just-released origin-of-a-serial-killer tale, The Boy. This year’s festival takes place Sept. 3 through Oct. 30, at L.A.’s Cinefamily, at the Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Avenue.

This year’s lineup also boasts the Taissa Farmiga– and Nina Dobrev-starring Final Girls, the by-all-accounts-completely-nuts New Zealand film Deathgasm, and a night of programming by horror film expert Zack Carlson. The screening of Habit, which takes place Oct. 4, will be followed by a discussion between the director and Daniel Noah. (Fessenden fans may also care to note that Habit is one of the films featured in The Larry Fessenden Collection, a Blu-ray set being released by Scream Factory, Oct. 20).

As usual, SpectreFest also features a strong musical component: Cooties composer Kreng  (a.k.a. Pepijn Caudron) will provide an original score to accompany a screening of the Ingmar Bergman film Hour of the Wolf, and film composer and electronic musician Steve Moore will present an original synth score set to an abstract re-edit of the Superman films of the ‘80’s. Finally, Geto Boys rapper Bushwick Bill will present a screening of his favorite horror movie, Child’s Play, as part of a “Hip Hop Horror” evening.

The full SpectreFest lineup can be found via the official SpectreVision website.