FROM ASX:

Maestro of macabre media Larry Fessenden talks upcoming horror projects
By: Justin Stokes AXS Contributor Feb 7, 2016

Those looking for a good scare have, since the cultural inception of the horror film, had a tough time doing so. There’s so much content ground out with little highlight of the plot and an over-emphasis of the blood spilled that horror films have always been a little brother to more serious genres of cinema. Even in an age of streaming content through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and niche services that cater to those looking to quench an adrenaline thirst only have a small supply of things that mass audiences would consider well made.

Among those scarce, scary few taking it upon themselves to make something that tells a story within the horror community, Glass Eye Pix has been in business for three decades. And the twisted brain behind the glass eye is familiar face Larry Fessenden, whose had a bloody hand in some of indie-horrors most dreadful darlings.

AXS recently had the chance to chat with Fessenden over the phone to discuss the myriad of projects he’s involved with, and just what it means to make a horror project that audiences consider “quality.”

AXS: A recent piece with Entertainment Weekly said that you were “fast becoming ‘the King of All Horror Media.’” What are your thoughts on such a label like that?
Larry Fessenden: I’m of two minds. One is that I believe in creating one’s own mythos, as some artists do, like Alfred Hitchcock or David Bowie’s on the mind as of late. So I do enjoy that aspect of showbiz.

At the same time, I don’t feel that I have the access to funding and the other things that would go along with being an icon. I have been a great supporter of a many voices in the genre, so I think that’s where it comes from. I’m not sure why it’s happened to me, except that I’ve been around a long time and I’ve always associated with cool projects.
AXS: What is your “mythos”?
LF: What I presume is an authenticity that gives new life to old cliches. I want to make a vampire movie that feels very real; that has an immediacy and therefore revises the sense of excitement and all the other emotions that the genre can illicit. I would argue that in all ways, I want to be associated with an authentic voice – both as a mentor and as a producer, and also in my own work.

AXS: Is authenticity missing within horror?
LF: I feel like… actually since Halloween and some other projects like that, that studios have realized that there is money to be made in horror. Once studios get involved, things get genericized.

The thing about horror is that it’s a very exploitative, shocking medium. If it’s not being done for a purpose, it’s actually very disquieting and not really inspiring. It’s just depraved (laughs). So there’s a responsibility to have it be about something. It’s supposed to be an outsider medium that shakes the viewer out of their complacency. I think you want to carefully guard that aspect of the genre.
AXS: You’ve helped do that with a few works. Let’s discuss We Are Still Here.
LF: It’s made by newcomer Ted Geoghegan, who has written a lot of horror and has also been a behind-the-scenes advocate. He invited me to be on board, along with Barbara Crampton. It’s inspired by the work of Fulci and other 80s horror movies. It’s exactly what I’m describing when I say “movies that come from the underground,” and make a difference. I was just an actor in it. I’ve known Ted for some time, and he says he wrote the part for me.

AXS: You’ve also got Tales from Beyond the Pale. What made you want to revitalize the days of horror to the 1950s EC style as a live-read radio broadcast?
LF: Tales from Beyond the Pale is a collaboration by myself and Glenn McQuaid. We were listening to an old radio play in the car, and thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to produce those through my company Glass Eye Pix?” So we invited filmmakers to offer up scary stories for audio production. The first season there were ten tales each by a different artist. What they are is very modern stories, they’re not “old-timey.” We’re really trying to take audiences to a very evocative place.

We’ve had three seasons since then, and we’ve worked with people as fantastic as Stuart Gordon and actors such as Ron Perlman, Vincent D’Onofrio… Just a great array of talent. What’s so special about Tales is that you can take an idea, and you can really follow it through at a budget level and schedule that’s doable. So we really get to get content out there that otherwise… Being a filmmaker is a waiting game. And this sort of alleviates some of that frustration. One thing that we try to push is to get away from dialog and see how much can be conveyed through sound. It’s a very thrilling experience experience, and of course because it’s all sound, it’s the same cost to make a Tale that takes place on a spacecraft as it is to make a Tale that takes place in a southern swamp or a haunted house.

AXS: February also sees you in a horror anthology titled Southbound, in which you play a DJ.
LF: I have a small role in that. You know, we’re a community of filmmakers, and Roxanne Benjamin, who’s actually in some of Tales, gave me a call. So very happy to do that. It is sort of an ongoing character in the film. It’s a bunch of cool stories by filmmakers that I know, including Roxanne and David Bruckner and some others.

AXS: You’ve fostered several professional relationships with filmmakers, including Jim Mickle and Nick Damici. Are you continuing efforts with those two?
LF: I’ve been hanging out with both of them of late. We both have new things that we’re doing. We’re working on a project now that we’re keeping under wraps. And Mickle… he came to New York and searched me out, and wanted to do some projects together, and we kept in touch. Eventually, I thought of him for Stake Land. I met Nick through Mickle, and we all collaborated on putting that together with my company Glass Eye Pix. Then I was an actor on some of his subsequent movies.

AXS: Like Late Phases?
LF: Yeah, well we produced Late Phases, my company. So then we went back to our financiers NPI, we’ve done a lot of projects for them. They’re the same company that made We Are Still Here and they made a lot of our movies… so they came to us and said “Do you wanna make a movie starring Nick Damici and some werewolves?” and I said “Whats the question? Of course.” And that’s how that happened.

AXS: You’ve had one promising work that’s been in development – a Drew Daywalt project titled The Hurting Man?
LF: It’s a great story. I’m a huge fan of Drew’s short films. They’re remarkable punch-you-in-the-gut pieces. They’re really efficient. I had a mutual friend, and we hooked up – Drew and I – and we said “Let’s make this movie together.”

We’ve put quite a bit of energy into that film, but the stars didn’t align. There’s a lot of films that don’t get made that we spend almost as much time on as the films that do get made. It’s one of the reasons we did Tales, because that’s something that we could control because the budgets are within our grasp. So Tales has been very cathartic for Glenn and myself, and now you can see why. Because a movie as cool as The Hurting Man – it’s a great script and we even had a cast sort of lined up- but it didn’t happen yet.

AXS: Those restrictions don’t seem to slow you though, as you wrote a ten thousand page script for a video game?
LF: With my partner Graham Reznick. We wrote Until Dawn, which was a surprise success for Sony PlayStation 4. It came out in late August of 2015, with very little fanfare, and it’s become a wildly successful horror video game. And the reason it’s good is kind of what I mentioned earlier; there’s a certain authenticity to it. It starts as a teen slasher affair with eight kids going to a remote location, and they all seem to fulfill various cliches of the genre. But things start to deepen, and it becomes a very engaging video game. What happens in a video game is that you have to create various, branching stories. Which is to say that “If this character goes down that road, we have to write that story. But if they choose to take this other road, we have to write that story.”

It’s a remarkable game because if one of the characters die, then they’re dead for the rest of that game. Of course, you can play it over again. But the decisions really matter, and I think that’s why fans enjoyed it. It feels more like you’re living inside a movie. And whenever you’re in a horror movie and you say “Don’t go in the basement!” now you have a choice. You can either go in the basement or hide in the closet, but then you realize it’s not as easy as yelling at the screen. You’re actually making those choices.

This is the community that I have at Glass Eye Pix where we call on each other if there’s an exciting project to see if anyone’s available to partake.

The Larry Fessenden Collection – four of Fessenden’s movies – celebrates the work of Glass Eye Pix and is currently available for purchase. Southbound is in select theaters and on iTunes February 9, and Tales from Beyond the Pale are available for individual download or purchase as a box set. Check out the trailer for Tales to get more info about the thrilling radio series.

The New York Times highlights Ti West in announcement of the 89 features unspooling at SXSW this year. Fessenden appears in Ethan Hawke and John Travolta starrer, produced by GEP pals Peter Phok and Jacob Jafke for Blumhouse Productions. Also starring Jumpy, pictured!

Our 30th Anniversary Hootenanny continues with this series of Legacy Docs celebrating the community and collaborators that have kept us honest all these years…

Glass Eye Pix 30th Anniversary Mini-Doc: Producer Peter Phok, has been producing for GEP since 2005, playing essential roles on THE ROOST, TRIGGER MAN, I CAN SEE YOU, I SELL THE DEAD, BLOOD RED EARTH, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, STAKE LAND, BITTER FEAST, HYPOTHERMIA, THE INNKEEPERS and BENEATH. He speaks about his time working at Fessenden’s Independent production company. Edit by Chris Skotchdopole.

From Entertainment Weekly:

The Wendigo has some way to go before it joins the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein in the Monster Hall of Fame. But horror director Larry Fessenden clearly feels there is plenty of terror to be mined from this terrifying creature, which derives from Native American mythology and has been depicted in a variety of ways over the years. The filmmaker has directed two movies directly inspired by the beast (2001’s Wendigo and 2006’s The Last Winter) as well as an episode of the NBC horror anthology show Fear Itself starring Doug Jones as a man who develops a taste for human flesh — a recurring theme in tales about the creature.

The Wendigo even features in last year’s video game Until Dawn, which Fessenden wrote with longtime collaborator Graham Reznick. “This just shows a man who clearly has very few ideas but can really milk them for all they’re worth!” jokes the filmmaker, whose other directorial credits include 2013’s killer fish movie Beneath and is also one of the creative forces behind the Tales From Beyond the Pale spooky audio play series.

Fessenden’s latest project to concern the legend is a collection of essays and other materials called Sudden Storm: A Wendigo Reader, which the filmmaker has curated and will be published by Fiddleblack on Feb. 16 (the book is now available to preorder from the publisher’s website). Deliberately broad in scope, the chapters range from one penned by President Theodore Roosevelt, in which he recounts a “goblin story” he was once told by an old hunter, to a consideration of the creature’s appearances on the small screen by horror expert Samuel Zimmerman. Sudden Storm also boast illustrations from Gary Pullin, Isabel Samaris, and renowned poster artist Graham Humphries. “We discuss it in terms of folkloria, in terms of crypto-zoology, but then we talk about it in movies and TV,” reveals Fessenden. “There’s a lot to chew on, if I can use the expression.”

Fessenden first became interested in the Wendigo as a child. “When I was in second grade, this teacher would tell us stories and he described this deer creature running through the woods crying ‘Wendigo!’” the filmmaker recalls. As an adult, Fessenden investigated the myth further and, in time, the subject became something of an obsession. “It’s an Ojibway legend that proposes that if you are in the wilderness, and you succumb to cannibalism, you will then absorb the spirit of the Wendigo, and become a voracious, hungry, creature that will keep growing, and you’re hunger will never be satisfied,” he explains. “It was a cautionary tale against cannibalism — rather specific, I think, but maybe in those times it was an issue. What’s interesting is, unlike the werewolf, or the vampire, or the Frankenstein monster, it really is an elusive creature. It’s depicted — which I think is so delightful — like a dwarf, or like a giant, or like a stag-monster, which is how I’ve sort of seized on it. What I love is that it does sort of slip through the fingers and therefore it becomes more mysterious.”

Given Fessenden’s well-known interest in the subject, it is little surprise that Fiddleblack sought him out to oversee Sudden Storm. “It’s a fun collection of strange and odd things,” he says. A lot of people are covering the same ground but not approaching it in exactly the same way. I have somebody (Flavorwire writer Alison Nastasi) who insists that Cannibal Holocaust is about the Wendigo. So, it follows an interesting trajectory. And this speaks to this thing that obsesses me about the Wendigo, which is that it’s slightly intangible and yet you can get an essence of it.”

Fessenden may not be finished with the Wendigo — or, maybe, the Wendigo is not yet finished with him. The director admits he would consider remaking his film Wendigo, which originally starred Jake Weber and Patricia Clarkson. “I feel like I never depicted the creature right,” he says. “I think I captured some of the mood in The Last Winter — the sort of oddness and off-kilterness. [But] I agree with Guillermo del Toro and a few others who say, ‘I want to see the creature! F–k all the Val Lewton bullshit! Let me see it!’”

Above, you can exclusively see artist Hugo Silva’s depiction of the Wendigo — which decorates the cover of Sudden Storm — while, below, you can see Isabel Samaras’ illustration of the creature.

Witness the new SOUTHBOUND trailer and preview at DesDehollywood

The film, co- directed by Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath, and Radio Silence,
stars Kate Beahan, Dana Gould, and Larry Fessenden.

SOUTHBOUND will be released in theaters on February 9.

Shots are fired in exclusive clip from Sundance action-thriller Carnage Park

There are some who believe Mickey Keating to be one of our most talented up-and-coming directors. He is certainly among the most prolific. Last year saw the release of his third film, the monster movie Pod, and he is set to debut his fourth, the early Polanski-homaging haunted house tale Darling, later in 2016. But that’s not all. Keating, who is still just 25, has already finished his next project, the action-thriller Carnage Park, which is receiving its world premiere at the Sundance Festival on Tuesday. Set in the late ’70s, the film concerns two bank-robbers and their hostage who find themselves in the sights of a psychotic ex-military sniper.

“Carnage Park is my total love letter to Peckinpah, and Deliverance, and ’70s survival movies,” he says. “It’s set in 1978 and it’s a crime story [which] turns into a fight for survival. It’s hard to categorize in a way, because it’s an energetic crime movie that goes horribly horribly awry. I think it’s going to be something different for people.”

Read full article and watch the clip at Entertainment Weekly

“…Separating the spare narratives of several disparate Montana women — a morally stressed lawyer, a nest-building mother, a lonely ranch hand — waiting indefinitely for their worlds to fall into place, it’s a peculiarly riveting examination of the lives lived when even their owners aren’t looking. Crafted with Reichardt’s customary calico-textured beauty and expertly performed by such hand-picked ensemble players as Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams and Laura Dern, this unapologetically open-ended slow burn probably won’t convert many viewers to Reichardt’s softly-softly sensibility, but it’s among her richest, most refined works.”

read full review at Variety

Fessenden has projects as producer, executive producer, actor and editor at the Sundance Film Festival and Slamdance Film Festival, taking place in Park city Utah this year and starting today. Good luck to all the collaborators!

CERTAIN WOMEN (dr. Kelly Reichardt) World Premiere of the film executive produced by Fessenden and Todd Haynes, starring Laura Dern, James Le Gros, Jared harris and Michelle Williams. Entertainment Weekly calls it “one of the top 12 must-see films of this year’s festival.”

RIVER OF GRASS (dr. Kelly Reichardt) New digital restoration of Reichardt’s debut feature, starring Lisa Bowman and co-starring, edited, and produced by Fessenden, will unspool at Sundance this year after premiering at the festival in 1994. Reichardt reminisces about her first visit to the festival in an article also featuring GEP pal Ira Sachs (THE DELTA).

CARNAGE PARK (dr. Mickey Keating) Horror dynamo and former Glass Eye Pix intern Mickey Keating (DARLING) makes his Sundance debut with his 4th film (look out Tarantino), featuring an appearance by Fessenden along with Ashley Bell, Pat Healy, Graham Skipper and others.

THE PAST INSIDE THE PRESENT (dr. James Siewert) An animated short by frequent GEP collaborator James Siewert (cinematographer, LIKE ME) comprised of thousands of hand-drawn images, three years in the making. Plays Slamdance. Produced by Fessenden and Chris Skotchdolpole for Glass Eye Pix.

The GEP and Dogfish Pictures collaboration LIKE ME, directed by Rob Mockler, officially wraps principal photography. Indiewire has the story and the first official still from the film.

Stare Into the Face of a Disturbing Future in ‘Like Me’ First Look Photo
By Mike Lown

Back in March 2013, Indiewire named the indie thriller “Like Me” as its Project of The Month. Almost three years later, we can now share a first look at the end result, which recently completed principal photography. 

The film is a collaboration between production companies Glass Eye Pix (“House of the Devil,” “Wendy and Lucy”) and Dogfish Pictures (“Compliance,” “Prince Avalanche,” and “Like Crazy”), who funded the project as part of their Dogfish Accelerator program. “Like Me” is the directorial debut of screenwriter and filmmaker Rob Mockler. The plot takes on our society’s ever-increasing addiction to technology. Addison Timlin (“Fallen”) plays Kiya, a discontented loner who documents her own crime spree through social media, which provokes a disturbing Internet following. 

Discussing the film’s production in an office statement, Mockler said, “It was a truly magical experience working with such a dedicated and collaborative cast and crew. Addison crafted an incredibly nuanced performance and brought Kiya to life with an unnerving realism. She never failed to surprise me.”

Filming commenced on December 1, 2015 all around New York, starting in Brooklyn before heading to Rockaway Beach and Woodstock. Check out the first look photo above.

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The news of LIKE ME’s principal photography wrap is making the rounds today, with stories popping up on Fangoria and Bloody-Disgusting.

Our 30th Anniversary Hootenanny continues with this series of Legacy Docs celebrating the community and collaborators that have kept us honest all these years…

Glass Eye Pix 30th Anniversary Mini-Doc: Writer, Director and Sound Designer Graham Reznick discusses his first encounter with Glass Eye Pix and the many projects he has collaborated on, from Ti West’s THE ROOST, to Larry Fessenden’s THE LAST WINTER, to his own films I CAN SEE YOU, THE VIEWER and THE CAREGIVER. He speaks about independent film and the extended Glass Eye family. Edit by Eric Pennycoff.