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…

Fessenden, JT Petty, Travis Stevens and more discuss the biz of genre filmmaking in the Fall 2014 issue of MovieMaker Magazine, on newsstands Nov 25th.

From MovieMaker.com:

“A decade ago, the primary focus of independent horror moviemakers was making a good horror movie, knowing that if they did their job well, they were virtually guaranteed to find an audience and make their money back (and then some). Horror was the Teflon genre—or so it seemed.

“In the last decade it’s gotten cheaper to make movies, and harder to make money off of them,” says J.T. Petty, writer-director of horror features The Burrowers (2008) and Hellbenders (2012). “The ‘guarantee’ most people took for granted was the DVD market, and that’s all but gone.” Today, the business of independent horror moviemaking has changed dramatically, and while making a good movie is still paramount, the moviemaker of 2014 must wear other hats just as well in order to survive: branding expert, distributor, producer, publicist, sales agent. “And,” as Eduardo Sanchez, director of 1999’s game-changing The Blair Witch Project and the upcoming Exists, says, “most of us didn’t get into this to become distributors.”

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According to Larry Fessenden, director of Wendigo (2001) and producer of Stake Land (2010), “Executives often say, ‘Do you have anything in the Blumhouse model?’ The thing to understand is: Blum’s films have name actors (Ethan Hawke, Patrick Wilson) who work at scale, the films are made relatively cheaply, and there is a distribution scheme that gets the movies onto 3,000 screens on opening weekend. This is not the same as making an independent haunted house movie on the Canon 5D and hoping it makes a lot of money. You can’t guarantee your investors that your $15,000 movie will earn $200 million at the box office.”

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“Horror used to have that whiff of danger and discovery,” says Fessenden. “That is why the remakes don’t excite the fans, because there is no discovery there, just studios cashing in. Blum’s films are original stories, even as he franchises them, and that alone makes his approach more compelling than the studio approach.”

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Stevens is philosophical, though optimistic. “Your perspective shifts a bit. Maybe there isn’t more money coming in, but what are the upsides? Our film played around the world in festivals, which gave us opportunities to meet more filmmakers, financiers and distributors. It played globally in cinemas and was easily available in retail outlets. This meant we were building an international audience and international distributors see value in that. It allowed us to secure more money on our other projects. Your definition of ‘profit’ expands a bit, working in this space.”

Check out the full article at MovieMaker.com.

GEP had a great time bringing TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE to the Stanley Film Festival! Check out the TALES: STANLEY EDITION official trailer below and see pics from the fest here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STANLEY FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES JOE DANTE TO RECEIVE “MASTER OF HORROR” AWARD PRESENTED BY MICK GARRIS, FULL CAST FOR TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE: THE STANLEY EDITION, PANELS, AND ADDED SCREENINGS

April 14, 2014 (Denver, CO) – The Stanley Film Festival (SFF), presented by Chiller and produced by the Denver Film Society, announced their full lineup of panels, added screenings, Dean’s Cup short films, and the full cast of TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE: The Stanley Edition (presented by Glass Eye Pix). Celebrating the best in independent horror cinema, SFF will showcase a full slate of features, shorts, panels and fully immersive experiences – set at the Stanley Hotel. The haunted landmark opened in 1909 and was the inspiration for Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

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Adding to the 4-day celebration of horror, TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE: The Stanley Edition has been created specifically for SFF 2014. TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE is an ongoing series of audio dramas penned by luminaries from the world of contemporary horror. The Stanley Edition will proudly feature SFF attendees Martin Starr (Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead), Jocelyn DeBoer (Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead), AJ Bowen (The Sacrament), Ana Asensio and noted director and writer Larry Fessenden and additional special guests. The performance will be held at the Historic Park Theatre in downtown Estes Park on Saturday, April 26 at 4:45pm.

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Rounding out the weekend is a series of panels. SpectreVision cofounders Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh Waller will present a panel about their film production and music management company and their future plans. Additional panels include Who Watches This Stuff?: Buying, Selling, Distributing and Exhibiting Horror Films Today as well as a panel focusing on the New Wave of horror featuring Ti West, Travis Stevens, Glenn McQuaid and Larry Fessenden.

Check out the full press release here.