Trailer and poster now available.

From Rue-Morgue:

 Exec producer Larry Fessenden’s DIG TWO GRAVES unearths supernatural thrills this month

New York horror mogul Larry Fessenden was among the executive producers of DIG TWO GRAVES, a supernatural film starring THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS’ Ted Levine. It’s coming later this month; keep reading for the info, trailer and poster.

 Area 23a Movievents releases DIG TWO GRAVES to select theaters and VOD March 24. Directed by Hunter Adams from a script he wrote with Jeremy Phillips, the film also stars Samantha Isler, Troy Ruplash, Danny Goldring and Ann Sonneville. The synopsis: After 13-year-old Jacqueline Mather [Isler] loses her brother in a mysterious drowning accident, she is soon visited by three moonshiners who offer to bring her brother back to life—but at a grim cost. As the dark history of her grandfather, Sheriff Waterhouse [Levine] is unearthed, the true intentions of the moonshiners come to light.”

From Entertainment Weekly: 

Glass Eye Pix and Hood River Entertainment are teaming up to produce horror-thriller The Ranger. The film follows a group of teen punks who get in trouble with the cops and escape to the woods. There, they come up against an unhinged park ranger with an axe to grind, hell-bent on preserving the serenity of his forest.

The Ranger will be the directorial debut of Jenn Wexler, who cowrote the script with Giaco Furino. Wexler is best known as a producer whose credits include director Robert Mockler’s Like Me and Ana Asensio’s Most Beautiful Island, both of which are screening at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. Wexler also produced director Mickey Keating’s Must List-approved 2016 haunted house tale Darling and the same filmmaker’s Psychopaths, which will receive its world premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. Andrew van den Houten and Ashleigh Snead will produce for Hood River Entertainment and Larry Fessenden and Heather Buckley will produce for Glass Eye Pix, along with Wexler. The title was showcased at the 2016 Frontieres International Co-Production Market at the Fantasia Film Festival. It was at the market that the two companies decided to join forces and produce the film.

“I have a long history with Andrew, ever since he cast me in his feature debut Headspace, and later in Jug Face, but this will be our first time partnering as producers,” said Fessenden in a statement. “It is a thrill to team up to support Jenn Wexler’s first outing as a feature director after her many outings producing for others.”

“I’ve been a fan of Jenn’s work since I selected her short film to be the winner at Viscera Film Festival years ago,” van den Houten. “Now I’m honored to be helping finance and produce her first feature. Larry, GEP, and I have been waiting to collaborate for years so may this be a fruitful start with many more projects to come.”

The Playlist has the scoop

As immigration continues to dominate the national conversation, things couldn’t be more timely for Ana Asensio‘s “Most Beautiful Island,” which is getting ready to premiere at this month’s SXSW Film Festival.

In addition to directing, Asensio wrote and leads the film, which also stars Natasha Romanova, David Little, Nicholas Tucci, Larry Fessenden, and Caprice Benedetti, and tells the story of a single day in the life of a young, undocumented immigrant in New York City. 

“Most Beautiful Island” launches this weekend. Poster created by Mondo artist Jay Shaw.

Fessenden will appear in 4 movies at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, including two Glass Eye Pix productions, LIKE ME and MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND. He also shows up in THE TRANSFIGURATION by Michael O’Shea, the much anticipated new vampire flick that was a hit at Cannes last year, as well as CHEAP THRILLS director E L Katz’s next flick SMALL CRIMES, starring Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. 

Meanwhile, you can catch Fessenden streaming live in recent releases STRAY BULLETS, STAKE LAND 2, and GIRLFRIEND’S DAY, and look for him at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Mickey Keating’s PSYCHOPATHS in April.

The question it seems, is not “what role does Fessenden play?”, but “how does his character die and how quickly?” Inquiring minds would like to know.

Recent portrait of the thespian by longtime pal Robin Holland

LIVE AT HOWL! 6 East 1st St. & Bowery, NYC. Saturday March 4th, 7pm.

GEP pal Robert O. Leaver (co-writer, The Last Winter) AKA Birdthrower, will perform LIVE Saturday.
Birdthrower has been making noise on Ben Harper’s Instagram page this last month
with videos by Glass Eye Pix. Check them here and here

A Glass Eye Pix Production directed and written by Mickey Keating. (USA)

World Premiere, Narrative. Over the course of one excessively blood-soaked night, multiple serial killers’ paths cross, leaving a trail of bodies and begging the question: Which psychopath will live to see morning? One of the most exciting and unclassifiable new voices in indie horror, Mickey Keating delivers his wildest ride yet with this ultra-stylish and uber-violent descent into madness. With Ashley Bell, James Landry Hébert, Mark Kassen, Angela Trimbur, Larry Fessenden, Jeremy Gardner, Sam Zimmerman.

From Bloody-Disgusting

“lots of ambience and mood… a distinct feeling of desolation and claustrophobia
… fascinating, and very well produced … Give it a try.”
—Soundtrack Geek

“particularly effective use of his own haunting, guitar-heavy score
… Fessenden could probably pursue a career in music if the challenge of film-making palls”
—Hollywood Reporter

“an impressive debut with an equally impressive score”
—Victoria Advocate

STRAY BULLETS original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Now Available from Lakeshore records

composed and arranged by JACK FESSENDEN
additional composing CHRISTIAN NOLL
producer LARRY FESSENDEN
recorded at UNDERGROUND AUDIO, NYC
engineer, mix and mastering MATT ROCKER
additional engineer WILL WHATLEY

keyboards, guitars, percussion JACK FESSENDEN
bass MARK LERNER
electric guitar CHRISTIAN NOLL
cello ASA SPURLOCK
violin CYRUS SPURLOCK

“Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert
recorded at DUBWAY STUDIO, NYC
engineer and mix RUSSEL CASTIGLIONE
thanks AL HOUGHTON

piano ROGER PELTZMAN
vocals LUCY KATHERINE GHEGRAE

FROM THE COMPOSER

Even after Stray Bullets picture-locked, my biggest creative challenge still lay ahead: composing the score. I had used pieces by Cliff Martinez, Brian Eno, and Philip Glass, among others, as temporary music in my edit to help myself understand what mood I was hoping to evoke with the score I would go on to write.

I worked with Christian Noll, a fellow musician and friend from school, to help get started with developing chord progressions and sounds for the music, and soon felt confident enough to continue on my own and compose the entire feature film’s worth of tracks. We recorded in only 4 days, inviting friends from upstate to come down to play bass, cello, and violin. Asa Spurlock, my co-star in the film, and his younger brother Cyrus made up our string section, and Mark Lerner of Phoenicia, NY offered a unique bass tone that occurs throughout the score. I played most of the other instruments, drums, keyboards and guitar, expanding upon previous ideas and coming up with totally new ones in the moment.

I like to enter the studio with a solid understanding of what is needed and an openness to working spontaneously; I had made crude recordings of several of the main pieces with different parts and instrumentations mapped out, but other themes were less developed, and were discovered and refined in the studio. Never have I handed a musician a sheet of notation; I like to talk with collaborators and get them on the same page and then see what they have to offer, how they respond to my direction. Improvisation, especially with a largely atmospheric and ambient score such as this, is how we found the most memorable sounds. I believe it is in those last minute adjustments and additions that the music can really come into its own.

We mixed the music right there in the studio, Underground Audio on 3rd street next to Hells Angels, and were out of there in the afternoon of the 5th day. Sometimes I question myself before entering into an ordeal like this, fearing that I hadn’t done enough to prepare, but by surrounding myself with like-minded and willing collaborators, meticulously articulating my vision to them and letting them make of it what they will, I was able to shape the material and expand my original themes into the moody score I was looking for.

Jack Fessenden
Jan 2017

TRACK LISTING

Ricochet
Air
Crooks Bridge
Pulse
We Got It Good Here
Crux
Mood
Breakdown
What Took You So Long
Sweeten This
Prey
You’re Next
Pursuit
Stray Bullets
Crashing Down
“Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert

buy on iTunes