THE STAKELANDER! PSYCHOPATHS! STRAY BULLETS! LIKE ME! MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND!
Fessenden chats with Rue Morgue about current and upcoming GEP projects.

… “In fact,” Fessenden says, “the next crop of Glass Eye movies are kind of pushing the envelope of the visual, and departing from straightforward storytelling. That’s fun, and the whole point of the company: to be experimental and have a little bit more out-of-the-box thinking, when people are starting out and doing their early films on small budgets. You know, if you can’t compete with crane shots, you can compete with conceptual ideas and editing and stuff. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, editing was so much more interesting than it is now. Even though there’s a sense that it’s faster now than in a traditional movie, it doesn’t push your buttons the same way. So I’m very happy to have these two films. And then there’s STRAY BULLETS [a crime thriller marking the directorial debut of Fessenden’s son Jack], which is very traditional, and STAKELANDER is more straightforward; it feels like an ’80s horror film, very nicely composed. So Glass Eye’s got lots of stuff, including a non-genre film [by writer/director Ana Asensio] called MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND.”

Last year, GEP pal Graham Reznick along with Fessenden entered the world of gaming with the BAFTA award winning game UNTIL DAWN. Now, Fessenden is literally getting in your face with the VR expansion RUSH OF BLOOD! 

READ ARTICLE: rue-morgue.com

Let The Fall Season begin! Film Society Announces TALES LIVE!
One Night Only at Lincoln Center, NYC: October 20

From the Press Announcement:

Get ready for a one-night-only Scary Movies live event! Tales from Beyond the Pale, from the acclaimed audio series curated and hosted by Glass Eye Pix’s Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid, will take over the Walter Reade Theater on Thursday, October 20 with two brand-new audio dramas written especially for the occasion.

In addition to the October event, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will continue to present special one-off Scary Movies nights throughout the year, culminating in the 10th anniversary edition of the annual horror fest, which is moving to Summer 2017.

“After being a Halloween fixture for years, we decided that bringing Scary Movies to the summertime would provide an unexpected and fun escape for horror fans,” said co-programmer Laura Kern. “We’ve also been dying to work with Glass Eye Pix again, so we hope you will join us for this unforgettable collaboration in October, and for the other special events that we will be hosting throughout the year, until we return next summer, better than ever, to celebrate our 10th anniversary.”

Created by Fessenden and McQuaid with the goal of making audio drama a vital, contemporary medium, Tales from Beyond the Pale provides a forum for up-and-coming and established writers and filmmakers such as Stuart Gordon, Simon Barrett, Kim Newman, Sarah Langan, and others to push the horror genre into new territory. Performed with a cast of familiar faces, live musicians, and Foley theatrics, Tales boasts 40 original audio plays thus far, presenting twisted stories that will chill and delight fans of the macabre.

The Film Society proudly presents an evening showcasing two brand-new Tales written by Fessenden and McQuaid. Counting Vincent D’Onofrio, Ron Perlman, Michael Cerveris, Misha Collins, Shea Whigham, Joe Swanberg, Nick Damici, Kevin Corrigan, and James Le Gros among its roster of talent, this award-winning series promises a night as fun to watch as it is to listen to. Check back for updates regarding the evening’s participants.

Scary Movies is organized by Laura Kern and Rufus de Rham. Tickets go on sale Thursday, October 6 and are $18 / $13 for Film Society members and students.

Fest honcho Torsten Neumann flanked by Jack and Larry Fessenden
with Chris Skotchdopole, who presented his GEP-produced short THE EGG AND THE HATCHET

Press!

Fessenden does a Q&A with Buddy Giovinazzo

Buddy Giovinazzo and Gesine Giovinazzo-Todt with Fessenden Jr & Sr

The other famous guy at the fest

Teenage multi-hyphenate Jack Fessenden delivers a low-budget US indie thriller, world-premiering at the edgy German fest.

In most instances a filmmaker’s age is irrelevant when discussing the merits of their work, but it’s impossible to view Jack Fessenden’s Stray Bullets with detached objectivity when aware he was 15 during the shooting and 16 when the film bowed to ticket-buyers. An enjoyably blood-soaked thriller with unexpectedly lyrical interludes — made very much in the shadow of classic genre forebears and on what was clearly a constrained budget — this is a strikingly impressive calling-card.

It’s a mark of Fessenden’s freakish precocity that the picture would doubtless secure numerous midnight-slot festival bookings and additional small-screen exposure even if programmers and buyers knew nothing of his extreme youth. As it is, the film has a unique marketing hook which will doubtless be exploited to the max by Fessenden’s dad Larry, a very shrewd operator with decades of indie-biz experience under his belt. North American premiere is scheduled for the Woodstock Film Festival next month in upstate New York, close to where most of the shooting took place.

Guinness World Records lists Nepalese 7-year-old Saugat Bista as the globe’s youngest feature-director, but Fessenden Jr appears to be unchallenged in terms of the English-speaking world. Starting early is clearly in the genes: Fessenden Sr. was also 16 when he made his first film, four-minute Super 8 road-movie The Eliminator (1979). Barely seen until released on a compilation DVD decades later, this was a shaky first step on a busily prolific career that has included acting jobs for Martin Scorsese, Kelly Reichardt, Joe Swanberg and many others, plus numerous outings as director and/or producer.

He plays an eyecatching supporting role and serves as DoP here, with his wife Beck Underwood overseeing production-design and costumes. Their offspring, however, receives sole credit for directing, writing, editing and for composing and arranging the atmospheric score (performing keyboards, guitar and percussion) and is even listed among the production’s five chefs. Yes, he cooks too.

Fessenden Jr, who has been honing his craft on shorts for several years and appeared in his dad’s Wendigo (2001) and The Last Winter (2006) as a tot, is clearly more than capable on all creative fronts — even if his acting chops currently fall a little short of his behind-the-camera talents. But that isn’t much distraction, as his connections have landed him a slew of hugely experienced character-actors including top-billed James Le Gros and the more fleetingly-glimpsed Kevin Corrigan.

Among the fresher faces, Asa Spurlock — who bears a striking resemblance to Ezra Miller — is the standout as Ash, a soft-spoken and sensitive sort who spends most of his free time with his brasher best pal Connor (Jack Fessenden). After larking around in the woods near their home in an unspecified corner of rural New York State, the duo stumble into the clutches of three desperate gangsters. The criminals (Le Gros, Larry Fessenden and John Speredakos) have fled the City in the messy wake of a shootout, with an implacable hitman (Corrigan) close on their heels.

Fessenden switches smoothly back and forth between Ash and Connor’s bucolic escapades with a stolen paintball gun and the gangsters’ profanity-laced exchanges in their speeding car as Fessenden Sr.’s Charlie bleeds out on the back seat. Innocence and experience duly collide in the second half, but the screenplay delivers a few nicely unexpected developments — including one seriously shattering leftfield jolt — in a film which foregrounds character and dialog ahead of slam-bang pyrotechnics. When push comes to shove in the final reel, however, Fessenden stages the inevitable gunplay with persuasive brio — aided by special makeup effects by seasoned maestro Brian Spears.

Leaping far beyond the occasional rough edges of his opening scenes, the director really hits his stride in these latter stages, deploying slow-motion in a mature, sparing fashion, and making particularly effective use of his own haunting, guitar-heavy score. Indeed, on this evidence Fessenden could probably pursue a career in music if the challenge of film-making palls. Anyone invested in the art-form’s future, however, will firmly hope he can go on to emulate the likes of Don Coscarelli and Xavier Dolan, for whom teenage kicks augured accurately for achievements to come.

The Hollywood Reporter
3:57 PM PDT 9/19/2016 by Neil Young

Production company: Fessypix
Cast: Asa Spurlock, Jack Fessenden, John Speredakos, Larry Fessenden, James Le Gros, Kevin Corrigan, Robert Burke Warren
Director / Screenwriter / Editor / Composer: Jack Fessenden
Producers: Jack Fessenden, Larry Fessenden, Beck Underwood
Cinematographer: Larry Fessenden
Production designer / Costume designer: Beck Underwood
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival (Independent Competition)
Sales: Glass Eye Pix, New York (chris@glasseyepix.com)

GEP’s Jenn Wexler will be chatting anthologies this Monday as part of IFP Film Week’s “Collaborative Filmmaking: The Rise of Multi-Director Movies” panel. Check it!

THE STAKELANDER, the follow-up to GEP’s acclaimed action horror hit STAKE LAND, will premiere at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain this October.

THE STAKELANDER is directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, written by Nick Damici, and stars Damici and Connor Paolo. Produced by Peter Phok and Larry Fessenden of Glass Eye Pix, Greg Newman of Dark Sky Films and co-produced by the Syfy Channel, as well as Mark Montague of Berkserker Entertainment.

More at SitgesFilmFestival.com.