Hollywood on the Hudson with Film Director, Larry Fessenden

2 out of 8 aint bad…
(Fessenden involved in 2 titles as producer and actor)

The House of the Devil is one of the first ‘80s throwback horror films I remember seeing. It perfectly captures the look and feel of the 1980s and also works as a master class in slow-burn tension building. Of the period horror films set in the ‘80s, this tale of a babysitter running afoul of a satanic cult feels the most like it could actually be a lost relic from that decade. The wardrobe, styling, and set pieces are all on point.

Yes, We are Still Here atechnically takes place in 1979. But I couldn’t live with myself if I left it off this list. Ted Geoghegan’s horror period piece captures the essence of Fulci but tells its own terrifying story of a haunted house in search of a sacrificial offering.  The wardrobe and set design really invoke a long gone era. Not to mention, Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden are a delight in their respective roles. 

Read the Full List at Dread Central

“A triptych of vignettes set in places where
exhaustion, tedium, fear and duty collide to make moral reasoning difficult,
Foxhole marks the second feature so far by a filmmaker barely out of his teens.
Jack Fessenden (son of genre fixture Larry, a producer here) wears many hats,
most of them very well, teaming with a fine cast to deliver a war film
where happy endings may be imagined but bloody ones are never in doubt…

Fessenden directs and edits tense dialogue sequences with skill…

a movie that almost entirely rises to the height of its ambitions.
Let other films argue whether war is ever defensible or
pit one conflict’s righteousness against another’s;
Foxhole cares about the individuals tasked with fighting,
in the hours that challenge them most.”

—John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter

read full review

Fessenden’s film among 30 essential eco-horrors
such as THE BIRDS, PROPHESY, PRINCESS MONONOKE, FROGS,
GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, STALKER, WATERWORLD, etc…

ECO-HORROR & CLIMATE FICTION | OFFSCREEN

In the wake of the unprecedented pandemic, we plunge headfirst into the toxic ooze of the “anthropocene”, an epochal description of the last two hundred and fifty years, during which mankind has disrupted the climate and despoiled every last inch of Earth’s natural landscape…

Our programme includes no less than thirty films, divided between Cinema Nova and Cinematek. From an out-of-control climate (The Last Winter), retribution from the animal world (Long Weekend) and plagues of arthropods (Kingdom of the Spiders, Phase IV) to pandemics (The Andromeda Strain), pollution (Frogs) and overpopulation (Soylent Green), it will be a dark trip through cinematic depictions of climate fear, at the point where the dystopian sci-fi of the first ecological genre films of the 1970s is increasingly becoming a dangerous and tangible reality.

An American oil company rep (Ron Perlman) clashes with an environmental scientist on a remote Alaskan outpost afflicted by odd phenomena. An effect of climate change, or is everyone going stir crazy? Eerie indie eco-horror in which the snowy wasteland draws on its paranormal heritage to oppose the human invaders.…

THE LAST WINTER Introduced by Silvia Pastorelli (Greenpeace EU climate and energy expert)

Andi Matichak stars in the Glass Eye Pix / Nous Entertainment production

from the Program Notes:

36 hours in three different wars – the American Civil War, World War I, and Iraq. »Foxhole« follows a small group of soldiers who are confronted in a confined space with questions of their morality, the futility of their actions, and an increasingly unpredictable combat situation. Between courage born of desperation, fear of death, and absurd attempts to posit positions of right or wrong, Jack Fessenden’s intensifying construct invites space to everything that defines a human being. There is no war, there is no patriotic goal, not even orientation in the most elementary sense. All there is, is a foxhole, a wall of fog and a desperate will not to die. A war movie, an anti-war movie, a deeply humanistic movie, written and directed by a 19-year-old that is as mature, thoughtful and poetic as “Foxhole” is a dazzling promise for the future of cinema. Nothing less than humanity is negotiated, from the trench in the American Civil War to a Humvee in the Iraq war. What have we learned in the last 150 years?

“There is no shortage of films
about the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
but there is a lack of good ones. The low-budget indie Liberty Kid,
produced by downtown auteur Larry Fessenden,
is one of those that succeeds.”
—New York Post

Fessenden at the 2007 LA Independent Film Fest with three GEP flix…
LIBERTY KID by Ilya Chaiken, TRIGGER MAN by Ti West and
THE LAST WINTER by Larry Fessenden.

Glass Eye Pix ushers in Hispanic Heritage month
and commemorates the 20th anniversary of 9/11
with the HBO MAX debut of this award-winning film from 2007
directed by Ilya Chaiken, starring Al Thompson & Kareem Savinon.

“Liberty Kid elevates that woeful genre, the 9/11 movie,
by keeping a ‘Wire’-worthy ear to the street talk
of south Williamsburg and maintaining
a shrewd balance of the personal and the political…
an uncommonly acute, deftly played drama”
—Village Voice

watch the trailer

GEP pal Beck Underwood will screen her latest spell
in the animation program 
Fri, Oct 1st, 4:00 PM @ Woodstock Community Center
GET TICKETS NOW!

from The WFF Catalogue

Synopsis: In a non-distinct period in time, at a table in a barn, masked figures commune over simple chores and games. These mysterious interactions serve to conjure a playful spirit. As night falls the spirit poses questions about the life that continues on without them.

Director’s Bio: Beck Underwood is a filmmaker based in the Hudson Valley and NYC. She conducts her experiments in stop motion animation in a variety of settings, embracing the planned and accidental with equal glee.

Film Website: www.beckunderwood.com