Pre-Order starts today for Larry Fessenden’s “The Hole Digger” and Glenn McQuaid’s “Trawler” ON VINYL!

The TALES come in a gatefold sleeve. The first 100 copies will be colored (red/black mix for The Hole Digger and clear/blue mix for Trawler). All 500 copies in this limited edition will be numbered in gold foil.

Note: the actual gatefold cover will have the full artwork for each (Hole Digger on the front cover, Trawler on the back).

Visit Deep Focus Records to reserve yours!

Glass Eye Pix returned to the Javits Center this weekend for another year of Comic Con madness! Check out pics from the Con here, along with photos from the Super Week NYC premiere of ABCs OF DEATH 2!

Tomorrow night (Saturday Oct 11), Glass Eye Pix presents a double-feature of BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD at Videology in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

9:30PM Birth of the Living Dead
11PM Night of the Living Dead

Director Rob Kuhns, Producer Esther Cassidy, and Executive Producer Larry Fessenden will introduce!

Free to attend!

Get more details at Videology

Director Larry Fessenden chats with Crave Online about ‘N is for Nexus’ and delves into philosophies on horror, monsters and audiences.

“I wanted to tell a story about all the little things that lead to a convergence that could be deadly, tragic and sad, all the things that I associate with horror. Not as much visceral horror as a sense of melancholy. So I wanted to put a lot of things in place, the idea of time and how the smallest prompt or delay can affect where you end up in a given day. So I had the girlfriend urging him on and then he forgets something so he goes back. Those precious 15 seconds made all the difference in this. The woman who’s driving the cab driver to move faster through the lights, he’s getting frustrated but he’s distracted. It’s just fun to try to have all those elements and build that piece.

…

My agenda always is to connect the audience somewhat to the characters, even if you have to do it quickly. That’s just my approach to horror so that the horror, the violence or the incident that occurs has some depth. That’s just because that’s the horror I’m speaking of, the feeling of loss that you end up with. When there’s a death, it’s not just oh, it was so gory. It’s that this changed my reality. That person is no longer with me and now I’ll have to deal with all the hauntings, the thoughts, the memories and so on. So I’m always interested in that more sweet spot of horror. I wanted to get pretty quickly to a relationship, they’re nagging at each other and then you get into the more visceral editing. I was excited to be able to work with fast cuts because in a feature I often like to slow things down, to make the audience watch a little more carefully. Here I was in a way liberated to edit quickly and see how much information you could get out of an image that lasts for a second and a half. It was fun.

…

Look at us having this conversation. We’re talking about horror but in fact it leads ultimately to questions of philosophical depth and that’s why I love the genre. You can take any kind of horror movie, and even if the filmmakers themselves weren’t actively engaged in those ideas, they’re in the DNA of the genre because you’re dealing with good, not even evil. I hate that term, but you’re dealing with adversity, fear which is the most potent emotion, let’s be honest, and that motivates all other emotions. And then whether you do the right thing in a crisis is of course one of the main questions in life.”

Check out the full interview here.

In addition to the premiere of ELISE, the program for the night will feature some creepy classics, starting off with a projection of Jan Svankmajer’s short film HOUSE OF USHER on 16mm. After ELISE will be a reception with seasonal drinks and a projection of Carl Dreyer’s VAMPYR on 16mm.

F is for Fessenden

There’s one question about Larry Fessenden directing a segment for a Fantastic Fest-related anthology: What took so long?

“I tickled around with VHS right in the beginning,” he said, “but the timing didn’t work. The funny thing about that is that I took it too seriously, and the schedule’s changed.”

“N is for Nexus” proves that VHS‘ loss was ABCs gain. The homage to time-sensitive thriller Run Lola Run returns Fessenden to the concrete and brownstone New York of his early, seminal work, as an ill-fated couple try to meet up on Halloween. It was also a return to his early, zero-budget, guerrilla filmmaking style: “We didn’t really control the streets, so I was constantly going back, saying, ‘Well, I need this one other shot. Well, I’ll just ride my bike really fast through the intersection, and hope I get it.'”

The finished product is a lesson in efficiency as elegance, edited to the microsecond, as he brings the separated lovers, trick or treaters, a cab driver, and a businesswoman together along a tragic trajectory. Fessenden said, “I’m obsessed with chance,” which he called “my basis of horror. There’s also the violent horror, and the psychological thing of people slowly going mad. But there’s this other element, which is about timing and those little things that would affect the convergence, and lead to a terrible, unfortunate mishap. It’s the punchline you know is coming, but you’re not quite sure in which way it will come.”

Fessenden’s segment may be the most loaded with references, from the universal (both Frankenstein’s monster and his bride), and in-jokes for his fans (including a glimpse of the You’re Next masks, and a super-brief cameo by fellow indie horror master JT Petty). There’s a director’s cut that’s around six minutes but, he said, “It’s no better. In fact, it’s not as good, because it was just about torquing the screws.”

There’s only one edit that he almost regrets having to make: “Glen McQuaid, my friend the filmmaker, dressed as a nun, running through a shot. But it actually, believe it or not, slowed things down.”

Article in the Austin Chronicle

The Anthology film featuring shorts by 26 directors premiers tonight , October 2 on V.O.D.

Screening info at Magnolia Pictures

“Standouts among the pack include Larry Fessenden’s “N is for Nexus,” 
which finds a calamity befall a group of people at an intersection…”
—Dread Central

Watch Aram Garriga’s compelling documentary about Christianity in America,
now on Netflix as well as iTunes, amazon and available on DVD!

“American Jesus is an important documentary that will redefine
how the world looks at America and how we Americans look at ourselves…
with a level of intuitive intelligence I’ve never seen before in a film on religion.”
–The Huffington Post

“AN AMAZING FILM….
one of the best and most interesting documentaries on religion.”
–Todd Brown, Twitch

“Fascinating and informative…
one of the best, if not, the best documentary on Christianity in the United States today,
lift your arms in prayer and say “Hallelujah” for AMERICAN JESUS.”
–Debbie Lynn Elias, Movie Shark Deblore

 “Garriga is the new Alexis de Tocqueville..
“American Jesus” is to religion what de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” (1835)
was to our national life then: a revealing outsider’s exploration of truths we Americans are too close to.”
–The Huffington Post

“…REQUIRED VIEWING FOR EVERYONE.”
–Red Letter Christians

Congrats to Glass Eye Pal RON PERLMAN for his new memoir EASY STREET which hit shelves TODAY.

Check it out and get your copy here.

Ron’s candor and passion will surprise and inspire. Here’s a taste from a 2005 interview on the set of THE LAST WINTER.

Deep Focus records provides tantalizing details
about the upcoming TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE Vinyl release:

PRE-ORDER: October 13 — RELEASE DATE: December 2