Happy BENEATH Blu-ray/DVD Release Day! Fessenden’s killer fish flick is now available at Scream Factory, Amazon, Walmart and more.

Special Features include
Audio Commentary by Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick
A Look Behind BENEATH: Making the “Fish Movie”
Theatrical Trailer
Fessenden on JAWS
From the Web: WHAT THE ZEKE?
From The Web: WHAT’S IN BLACK LAKE?
Poster/Premiere Video
Digital Copy of the film

USA TODAY has an exclusive clip from the behind-the-scenes feature on the new BENEATH Blu-ray, coming out tomorrow from Scream Factory!

Fessenden gives basically the same interview all over again in Sean Alexander’s article for Cinephiled:

Larry Fessenden loves horror movies. As a director he has brought his own unique approach to the classic horror stories and conventions in such films as Habit, Wendigo, and his animist ghost story / environmental thriller The Last Winter. Through his production company Glass Eye Pix his has produced or co-produced dozens of films, including Kelly Reichert’s Wendy and Lucy andNight Moves, Ti West’s The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, Jim Mickle’s Stake Land, and the recent documentary Birth of the Living Dead, a tribute to one of the holy grails of modern horror.

Apart from an episode of the horror TV series Fear Itself, Fessenden hasn’t directed a film since the 2004The Last Winter, an eco-twist on the ghost story in the culture of big oil, so the arrival of Beneath, about a group of teenagers, a rowboat in the middle of a lake, and a giant, hungry, man-eating catfish looking for its next meal, is reason to celebrate. It begins as a classic tale of teens behaving badly, and more importantly stupidly, but what first appears to be a lazy set-up to stake out its victims for the movie menace turns out to be an insidious insight to the true nature of its characters and the basis for the real conflict of the film. It’s a smart, savage film that plays with the familiar conventions and then twists a knife in them, and it’s all done with a small cast, a confined space, and a script that reveals the worst in humanity.

While it received a brief theatrical release, Beneath was actually financed by and produced for Chiller, the cable horror channel sibling to SyFy. You say you’ve never heard of Chiller? Yeah, that’s the problem. The film just hasn’t been seen by many folks. Now that it is available on digital and VOD platforms and this week arrives on Blu-ray and DVD, I hope more people have an opportunity to discover one of the most surprising and insidiously clever monster movies of the last year. On the occasion of the disc release, I had a chance to speak with Fessenden about his career as a director, his love of old-school special effects, the real horror of Beneath, and of course what he’s been watching.

What are you watching?

I have a 14-year-old kid who loves movies so we watch a little of the old and a little of the new. We’ve seen all the Oscar stuff and we also watch movies from the seventies and I get him up to speed on Scorsese and Polanski and the heroes of my youth. Oddly enough he doesn’t care for horror so we don’t watch those except for the occasional time. Myself, there’s only so much time in the day so I’m more going on the journey with him. But recent films: Let the Right One In, District 9, The Mist. Those are all a little old but they are recent favorites.

And genre films too. When you are watching for yourself, are you going back to horror films?

Oh yeah, I’m pretty entrenched in genre movies. I grew up watching the old Universal films and it’s fun to watch some of these things again—and again and again—because they really are iconic. The imagery is truly… it’s what I grew up on and it’s interesting to watch them now as you’re older and try to understand what struck you, because of course we’ve become more sophisticated so the images don’t have the same impact, but they do have a strange quality. I love, for example, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, such a strange, beautiful creature design there. I like all kinds of movies.

What inspired you to take on the classic horror movie themes in a series of movies that turns the stories inside-out?

It’s exactly just what I was describing. I grew up on the old Universal films with Frankenstein played by Karloff or Dracula played by Lugosi and obviously then came the Hammer films and whatever, these were the movies you saw on TV when you were a kid in the seventies. But then I also became incredibly turned on by the cinema of Scorsese, these more realistic portraits of people’s psychology and the violence became more visceral and I wanted, in my own mind, to revisit the movies that I loved so much, like Dracula, and put this modern seventies spin on it. And that’s really the alchemy that created my whole body of work, to create contemporary horrors, whether it’s global warming or addiction, and talk about them within the tropes of old horror movies. So my movies are this strange hybrid of these two sensibilities that I’ve always had.

Where does Beneath fit in your filmography. Is this your Creature From the Black Lagoon or your Jaws?

It’s more your Jaws. And I joke that it’s not Jaws because the kids are despicable, or at least they are very flawed. They’re not heroes, whereas you love the characters in Jaws, each for their own reasons, these three working class guys fighting an unknowable evil which the shark is, clearly just a terrifying eating machine, as Hooper says. Whereas in Beneath I try to play with that and suggest that the kids not being able to get along is really the horror in the film and that we’re all – my major theme in all my movies – is we’re all alone with our viewpoint and it’s very hard to communicate. That became the focus, and in some strange way the fish isn’t so evil – it’s a menace of course, like fate itself is out there, causing problems – but in life you have to deal with what is dealt you and you can’t call that evil. It’s how you respond that becomes the measure as a man. So that’s how I look at this as sort of a revisionist Jaws movie, by turning the tables. And it’s not a movie in which your catharsis is going to be the killing of the monster. In fact, you may not have a catharsis.

I was thinking about that myself. I watched the Shout Factory Blu-ray and I watched the “making of” feature as well. I love that you started the behind-the-scenes piece with the creation of the fish. I love old school effects like that and that was a terrific creature, a solid, physical thing that got to interact with the performers. I love that because so much of TV horror and sci-fi effects are done with CGI.

I know, and they think they’re giving kids what they want, which is a more realistic creature, but in the end it never feels like it’s part of the scene unless you have one of the real masters doing it, like Peter Jackson. That was one of the things I told Chiller, I said, ‘Guy’s, let’s do this as a practical creature. That’s what I grew up on, monster suits and the big fish from Jaws, and that’s really how this will be fun and let’s have this be a throwback. We’re not trying to terrify with the fish.’ The script that I was given already had this entire notion about the kids being the source of the angst and the horror in the movie and I said, ‘Let’s have the fish be something that’s a real pleasure to watch even if it’s just listing to port, as it were.’ That’s part of the charm of this kind of movie.

Frankly speaking, the first 30 minutes are full of kids making stupid decision and acting like children just so the script can strand them in the middle of the lake. It was in the last half in the film that I realized that these actions actually spoke to who the characters were. Why would Johnny bring his friends to a place where he knows, or at least fears, a monster fish lives? Maybe because he really doesn’t like them all that much and might want to get rid of some of them, like the jock who is dating the girl he wants

Exactly. And maybe he envisioned himself somehow being a hero. He tries to give her the tooth, whether it works or not you never know. But that’s what I wanted, a movie that had all of those touchstones from a classic, clichéd horror film. Like the magic tooth. Is that really going to save you? Well, if you track it, it does, because Johnny has it on when he swims to shore, and then she wears it at one point and the fish passes her by. But is that really what we’re saying? Not really, it’s not a plot point, it’s just a strange coincidence and in a way I like to play on that. As for the stupidity of these kids, I’m sorry to say but I ask you to watch the news any day of the week and tell me that we’re not living in a world of absolute buffoons and jackasses and a lot of those people are controlling the country and they have no idea what they’re doing. So I’m sorry to say, this is my glimpse of humanity. There’s a menace out there that is facing all of humanity and we’re doing nothing about it. We’re arguing with ourselves based on petty grievances and to me this is exactly how humanity functions. And if you’re frustrated, I should have a little flyer in the disc case that says “Write your congressman because this is how congress behaves.” A bunch of fucking jackasses making stupid choices for no reason but their own selfishness. And that’s why, in my own way, when I read the script, I thought, I want to make this film. It’s a satire of humanity. I don’t know that everybody gets that, they think they’re watching a nice little genre film, but of course being genre, people always do stupid things.

There is that. And as the film went on, I found that these stupid actions were actually defining parts of the characters, revelations of who they really were. Like the two athletes who keep attacking the fish. All they want to do is hit it and of course they destroy their oars in the process. It is a stupid thing to do, but as you get to know them, it really is part of their personality.

One of them is probably a simpleton who feels threatened by his brother and the other is almost wicked—well, he is by the end—and you realize that these kids have all these resentments. And you get to the end, which we don’t have to be explicit about, but there’s another character that explicitly voices his grievances toward these kids and you just realize that life is a series of people banking their resentments and if you get into trouble and you need each other’s help, it’s scary that they might not offer it because they are so mad at you over something. You realize that people do not behave rationally, they don’t behave like the heroes in the movies, they just amass grievances and it can actually be the thing that undoes them. That’s my point, you know. We’ve all got to grow up. These kids are not grown up.

I was thinking Glengary Glen Ross in a boat surrounded by a killer fish.

Exactly. Take your pick, Lord of the Flies. The other thing is, I like what you said about Johnny. And I don’t think that anyone is going to give this movie much thought once it’s over but I plant, early on, you see that he’s almost a Goth kind of an artist, alone in his room with his strange little monster figures, and the question is, is he one of these scary Goth kids who has a grand design of how that day is going to go? So I wanted to plant a seed of doubt. Of course the actor is so charming that you don’t believe that about him, but that seed is there. And in the very end somebody says, “Did Johnny plan all this?” So I like playing with those clichés but none of them are lived out because I’m not explicitly saying that’s the plot. But that’s the essence of these characters. They do stuff subconsciously that they don’t even know. Why did he bring those kids out there? What did he think was going to happen?

By the end of the film, I was really caught up in how you had brought out all of this anger and resentment and jealousy. At a certain point I had to wonder, just how could they have put on a front of friendship this long?

I know, but look at the bullying that goes on. Not that this is some sort of preachy film, of course, but look at the bullying where people are driven to suicide. I’m not saying every kid is evil, but there is the potential. I’m not sure how to fix it but I’m not going to sugarcoat it so the movie seems more palatable. I think that’s what the movie is about. That’s the horror. The fish is just a sweet old little fishy-fish.

It’s almost like the fish brought out by their own behavior, like the fish is the physical manifestation of the monster inside them. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Which is a classic horror trope, of course.

I would like a movie that allows for all that interpretation and I would also like viewers to ask this question: Just because you have an initial frustration with a movie, don’t just assume that you’re superior and that the filmmaker has nothing to say. Maybe you have to reexamine what you have just seen. That’s my retort to these knee-jerk silly reviews that say things like, ‘The fish looks fake.’

Beneath is available on Digital and VOD platforms and available this week on Blu-ray and DVD from Shout Factory.
 

DAILY DEAD: Exclusive Interview with Beneath’s Larry Fessenden by Derek Anderson 3/21/14

Director Larry Fessenden’s latest feature, Beneath, focuses on six freshly graduated high school seniors who cross paths with a massive, human-eating fish one day on Black Lake. The film is a potent blend of physical and psychological scares, and it’s getting a Blu-ray & DVD release via Scream Factory on March 25th. With the home media release coming soon, I recently chatted with Larry about his experience making Beneath.

Larry, thank you for taking the time to talk about your latest directorial feature, Beneath. To start things off, can you tell our readers what attracted you to direct this screenplay by Tony Daniel and Brian Smith?

Well, I really loved how contained the story was. It all takes place on a lake, on a tiny rowboat, and I’m a fan of the experiments Hitchcock would get up to where you sort of limit your options. He made a movie called Lifeboat that was all in one boat. That was one thing that interested me, it almost becomes like a play. And the other thing I liked is the giant fish. What’s not to like? I just loved the idea of making a creature feature. I love monsters and fish and dinosaurs and all kinds of creatures so it seemed really fun to be able to make a practical effects creature feature, and also explore how dreadful these kids are to each other. Which is kind of my viewpoint of humanity, so I got to exercise three things all at once: cinematic limitations, a monster movie, and explore human nature at its darkest.

One of my favorite components of Beneath is its dominant use of practical effects over CGI. In particular, it was refreshing to see the man-eating fish portrayed in animatronic form. As director, editor, and producer, how did using practical effects factor into fulfilling your vision of the film?

Well, I’m a Jaws fan. You know, that’s an old movie now, I suppose, but to me it was seminal. They had a lot of trouble with their fish, and of course it led Spielberg to make certain choices. I just absolutely insisted on a practical fish. And Chiller, the guys who made the film, they were nervous at first because they really hadn’t seen it that way. I suspect nowadays people just assume you’ll do stuff CG. But I actually feel like this was the cheaper route, and that’s how I pitched it to them. I think to make good CGI you do need a lot of resources. That was not something we had at our disposal. But I just am an old fan of the guy in the monster suit and the practical puppets.

Look at a movie like Jurassic Park: that’s still a lot of puppets. Of course it’s enhanced by CGI, which we did with our movie. We had beautiful work on the eye and some other sneaky little tricks that helped us. Plus, it’s kind of a throwback. Let’s face it: this isn’t a horribly serious movie that’s supposed to terrify you. It’s kind of a tribute to these kinds of movies that I grew up on.

I understand you did the creature design for the giant, man-eating fish in Photoshop. Could you tell me about the creation process? Did you draw inspiration from other creature features?

Well, always in the back of your mind is a whole catalogue of great, weird, old movies. When I set out to design it, I sort of imagined the biggest, strangest, ugliest lake fish. I went on the Internet and I found some creepy-looking fish. There’s these fish that live at the bottom of the ocean and have the little light on their heads, and all these kinds of weird, two-feet faces. You can’t imagine why a fish would need teeth this big and all these kinds of things.

I sort of glued them all together. I wanted it to be black with stripes so it would weave strangely under the water. And I wanted to have those quills on the back so it’d be something like a dorsal fin, but not quite what we’ve seen before. Those are porcupine quills. So you just have fun. And then I had it drawn by a friend who does a lot of my concept sketches. And then you send it out to LA, which is where the fish was built, and then they get into the design of it because they’re making it into a physical clay sculpture. So things change and you keep moving forward. It was a fun process.

I heard that the majority of Beneath was filmed on a lake in Connecticut. Had you ever done a “water shoot” before, and what challenges or rewarding moments did you encounter while filming on The Barge?

I grew up sailing and boating and rowing, so I was comfortable on the water. As I have said many times, I love Jaws and so I have always wanted to try this challenge. I wanted to be out on the water. Now, of course Jaws was on the ocean and it had saltwater and all kinds of considerably more difficult problems. We were in a relatively tame environment on a beautiful lake. The only thing we had to worry about was the weather moving in and the threat of a thunderstorm, which means you’d have to leave The Barge. Shooting on the water just slows everything down. You actually have to take a boat just to get onto the set, and that takes much longer than cars and other kinds of shuttles.

So, the chemistry of the equation is that it takes almost twice as long to make the movie on the water, and you really see why that is. Also, you have safety concerns at all times. People could trip and drown and not even be noticed because you’re worrying about something else. [Laughs] “Where is that dang key grip, anyway? Oh my God, there’s his shoe.” [Laughs] The funny thing about film crews is it’s not like they’re pirates. They know how to light, they know how to move dollies and equipment, but not everybody was seaworthy, and so people had to learn. We had an 18-day shoot, and I always say it probably felt more like nine days that we got to make our movie.

Beneath boasts a talented, young cast. How much improvisation did you allow on-set, and as an experienced actor yourself, what advice did you give your cast members in-between takes?

Well, you know the script is pretty pulpy. And what I wanted to do is bring something into each of these characters, who are pretty wretched to each other and say some pretty crazy, implausible things. So I really encouraged the actors to be serious in their roles and to find a backstory and to find the humanity. They were all really game, young performers. They all are just starting out in their careers. It was so fun for me how much they committed to their characters, and to me that’s what makes the movie shine. They were very eccentric in their way; they really bonded, sitting on that boat for hours while the crew dicks around.

Griffin Newman, the guy who plays Zeke, is particularly chatty and clever and he did add a great deal of lines. He would add a lot of really funny zingers, and I would keep stuff if it felt right. I never like to treat the script as too precious, whether I’ve written it or if someone else has. You really want to go in the moment with what’s going on. Most of it is scripted, but it was fun when they’d come up with some additional lines, some additional gags, and a lot of that stuff is in the movie. As each character gets killed off, the actor would leave, and they really had bonded, so I think they really started feeling this loss as their numbers decreased.

You’re a director who also loves to edit, and you handled both duties on Beneath. This film features an additional camera point of view with Zeke, the aspiring filmmaker played by Griffin, who wears a GoPro camera on his wrist. What was your experience like in the editing room with an additional handheld POV to play with?

It was a lot of fun to have that. Most of the times we cut to the GoPro were planned or indicated in the script. I do try to design a film in such a way that I know what we’re shooting, so we’re not shooting a bunch of extra coverage. Zeke would always roll when the script called for his point of view. I would always encourage him to try to roll at other times. That’s such a wide-angle lens on the GoPro that he would often get the crew and the wheel-camera in the shot, unless we were specifically setting it up for the GoPro. I love the editing process and I had fun with Griffin’s footage.

The diverse music by Will Bates for Beneath meshes beautifully with the occasional blurred-focus shots and the sunlight shimmering on the water. This isn’t your typical horror movie score, and the seemingly happy daylight setting only adds to the film’s effective contrast. What mood did you set out to evoke with the combined sound and visuals? Did you have this vision prior to filming, or did it materialize in the editing room?

It developed with Will. I’m so appreciative that you mention it. The score was a bit of a struggle, but when we finally landed on this, I really loved it. I had given him a certain amount of temp music and some other references. I wanted to have this very dreamy element to the score. The other thing is when you see the woman dead and the camera floats up, it’s more like the sadness of these foolish kids in this terrible situation. That’s typical of me, to find horror more melancholy than terrifying.

I like the idea of personifying the fish not as an evil creature, like the Jaws theme—which of course we all love, but let’s do something different—I wanted this weird, existential sound. It’s just the idea of this natural creature that’s lumbering through the lives of these kids, and they’re meeting, unfortunately, on this lake. We used all kinds of strange sounds. Graham Reznick, our sound designer, but also a contributor of musical elements, came in.

The other thing we wanted was the scarier music—some of the drones and those kinds of off-kilter sounds—to be under the conversations and the arguments, not under the fish attacks. I’m emphasizing that the movie is about these kids behaving badly and responding the wrong way to this threat. That’s really the horror, how fragile their commitment to each other is, and they turn on each other and come up with more bogus excuses to protect themselves. They don’t work together to save themselves against the fish. All of that makes for a very strange, off-kilter experience.

Larry, thank you for taking the time to chat about Beneath. Before we go, I’d like to ask what projects you’ll be working on next as an actor and as a director that you’re excited about?

I just did a stint of acting in several movies. I had a lot of fun doing that, so I’ll be showing up in some movies. I was a producer on Late Phases by Adrián Bogliano and that’s just shown at SXSW and we’re looking for a mode to distribute it. I have a project called “Tales from Beyond the Pale,” which is lovely audio dramas that we’re distributing shortly, so I hope everyone will keep an eye out for those. And I have my own films that I’m trying to finance and set up, hopefully for the fall, but I prefer not to talk about things that aren’t real. Unless I’m making movies about things that aren’t real, then I enjoy talking about giant fish and other goblins and ghouls.

(photo from the director’s private collection)

From Entertainment Weekly: ‘Beneath’ DVD: Larry Fessenden talks ‘Jaws’ — EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

In the new horror movie Beneath — which Scream Factory is releasing on DVD and Blu-ray on March 25 — a group of folks attempt to fend off a huge fish in a boat too small for the task. If you think that sounds a lot like the plot of Jaws, then director Larry Fessenden (Habit, The Last Winter) will not be the least bit offended.

Indeed, Fessenden admits seeing Steven Spielberg’s film during its original release proved a massive, formative influence. “I saw it in Cape Cod in 1975,” the director told me, when he recently guested on SiriusXM 105′s Entertainment Weirdly. “I was obsessed with that film. I recorded the sound so I know the whole movie by heart, Mr Hooper! Then, I decided to make a GI Joe version and built the boat, a 6-foot Orca.”
Oh, if only Fessenden had kept that boat. Actually, he did! And the director shows it off with justified pride in the exclusive clip from the Beneath bonus features.

Our friends at FEARnet are hosting a BENEATH sweepstakes where you can win a Blu-Ray Prize Pack from Scream Factory featuring “Beneath”, “The Island” and the original classic “Piranha”

Enter here.

Fessenden’s BENEATH hits Blu-ray and DVD March 25.

Actor Jake Weber, speaking on a podcast for the hit show THE FOLLOWING with GEP pal Rob Galluzzo and FOLLOWING writer/producer Scott Reynolds, says WENDIGO is “my favorite film that I’ve ever been in.”

Check out the podcast here (S2/EP9) and hear Weber’s thoughts on WENDIGO at the 39 minute mark. Weber also speaks about the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and an upcoming project reuniting him with WENDIGO’s Patricia Clarkson.

TWITCH Film publishes interview with Fessenden on the occasion of the release of BENEATH.

From the post:

Interviewing Larry Fassenden was a real treat. When Hollywood is plaguing the horror genre with remakes, 15 unwanted sequels and anything to make a quick 60 million bucks, this guy has been in front of and behind the camera in numerous independent projects, helping to keep the original idea alive. He’s also made some time to act alongside Bill Murray and get a credit in a Martin Scorsese movie.

I caught up with Fassenden to talk about his latest directing outing, Beneath, about a bunch of punk ass teens up shit creek without paddles. But that’s the least of their problems — there’s a giant fish with razor sharp teeth and an appetite for 12 swimming around them just aching for one (or all) of them to fall in the water.

He also spills his guts on his love for all things horror, and gives us a little taste of what to expect for his segment in the upcoming ABCs of Death 2.

Check out the full interview at Twitch Films.

BENEATH hits Blu-ray/DVD March 25th via Scream Factory.

From DreadCentral.com:

“Veteran horror contributor and all-around cool guy Larry Fessenden has a lot of acting, directing and producing credits to his name. But he’s never worked with anything quite like he did on Beneath. Fessenden recently sat down with Dread Central to talk about his new film.

First he gave us a brief synopsis of what viewers can expect when they hitch their anchor to Beneath. “It’s a stylish little horror film about six teenagers stuck in a rowboat with a malevolent force under the water trying to get them,” Fessenden said.

“It’s a movie about the decisions they make to get out of the dilemma, and they’re not all pretty decisions.”

Indeed the film, which at first glance appears to be a monster movie, certainly has other, more devious intentions for viewers as they get deeper into the story and the characters become much less friendly with each other. “I’m a director with that sort of agenda on my mind. Life is what it is, but it’s how you respond to it. So I make movies about people behaving badly. I find that to be an interesting topic,” Fessenden said. “And the script sort of leant itself to that. I always say Jaws is a movie about a malevolent fish and three guys you really love. For one reason or another they’re very charming. Whereas in this movie, the fish is just doing what it does. It doesn’t have quite as much malevolence. But the way people react, that’s kind of the story in this case, and that worked for me. I think that’s what the original writers had in mind.”

But the first thing that will grab viewers’ attention in Beneath is a giant lake fish which terrorizes the teens stuck in a rowboat. And the veteran monster movie viewer will quickly realize the creature is a practical prop, not computer generated. “I pitched to Chiller that we’d have a real puppet. I had no interest in doing a CGI monster,” Fessenden said. “It’s not that I don’t love CGI; it works in a lot of movies. But quite honestly, you need a lot of money to sell that stuff. I think it’s tougher to sell than a rubber puppet, personally. So they agreed, just because it’s sort of charming. People think, ‘Why not? We’ll have a big prop fish.’ Well, then, of course, we had to make it.”

And the making of the fish was a story in itself. “We hired our guys out of LA, and I sent them some sketches of the creature I pictured in my mind. It was pretty vague. It just said…giant fish,” Fessenden said. “So we did some sketches and I did some Photoshop compositing and I sent them that. Then they had to build an enormous clay sculpture and they’d send me photos and I’d send them notes like, ‘I think the gills should be more like this…’ I’d draw on the pictures and we eventually got to where we made a mold, but it was really the talent of the sculptors that created this beautiful prop.”

Fessenden continued on the adventures of the fish. “Then it got shipped to New York and it went in the water with two puppeteers who would wear wetsuits and they’d go under the water and drag this fish around on a little line. It was incredibly old school,” he said. “It was just basically a huge inanimate object. Each shot required a different approach. If you wanted the jaws to move, maybe you had to be on a platform manhandling that. It was arduous but cool because you’re forced to break down the exact shot you wanted and get the fish to behave the way it has to just for that shot, and that was the toughest part.”

And although the giant prop is all handmade with good old fashioned elbow grease, the filmmakers did use just a dash of CGI for a couple finishing touches. “I think a lot of the last-minute details were accomplished though a little bit of CGI on top,” Fessenden said. “It gives it some life and the eye was sort of our main focus for that kind of thing. And they don’t make practical monsters so much anymore. I’m reminded of the Jurassic Park days, which were notoriously CG…but, of course, they really aren’t. They were enormous puppets. Beautiful creatures, huge armatures and even quite heavy and dangerous, and I came from that tradition.'”

Check out the full interview on Dread Central.

BENEATH hits Blu-ray/DVD March 25th via Scream Factory.

Aaron Christensen at HORROR 101 WITH DR. AC provides in-depth interview on the forthcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of Fessenden’s “fish film”, being released on March 25.

Fessenden prattles on while Christensen provides an array of enticing screen grabs from the DVD.

“In the nearly two decades since his 1995 festival hit, Habit, was released, Larry Fessenden has established himself as a proud independent godfather of sorts, with his NYC-based production company Glass Eye Pix fostering such rising talents as Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), James Felix McKenney (Satan Hates You) and Jim Mickle (Stake Land). He also continues to direct (Wendigo, The Last Winter) and act (lending his memorable gap-toothed mug to four to five screen roles each year), seemingly content to thrive outside the Tinseltown web of wheeler dealers. His indomitable spirit remains alive and well, trumping high throttle studio machinery with the power of a simple story well told…”

Check out the rest of the article at Horror 101.

BENEATH hits Blu-ray/DVD March 25th via Scream Factory.