GEP congratulates Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, John Speredakos and Lorraine Farris on winning Best Ensemble Award for CRUMB CATCHER at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest!

Fangoria has the skinny: Elsewhere, the Head Trip jury was composed of Claire Donner, Director of the Online branch of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Terence Krey, NY-based genre writer/director, and Asha Phelps, Director of Administration & Films at IFC Center. The jury recognized the following…

Head over to Fango for more!

Austin Chronicle Fantastic Fest Review: Crumb Catcher
Relationship drama takes a twisted turn into true insight

BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

As they pose for wedding photos, it should be the happiest of all days for Shane (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck). But the opening moments of warped character study Crumb Catcher show there’s turmoil behind the place settings and gift receipts.

There’s a friction, subtly ramped up by quick cuts and unexpected camera angles that disorient the audience and place them in Shane’s shoes. Which are also Leah’s shoes. A couples counselor might look at their relationship and quietly write “enmeshment” on a pad, because the lines between the two are so blurred – and not in a healthy way. Shane is not just Leah’s husband, but also her client: He’s a rising young author who has cannibalized his past for his works, while she’s his agent. Professional and personal vested interests have become so intertwined that Shane fears he has forgotten who he is and instead has become caught up in a mixture of paranoia and self-doubt.

This creeping suspicion colors one of the most significant and tender scenes in Crumb Catcher, in which Shane roleplays as a rough and tumble street Lothario, taunting Leah about her absent husband and how he can show her a real good time.

It’s both erotic and romantic, but in a fashion reminiscent of mid-period Steven Soderbergh or John Cassavetes: laden with tragic and poignant undertones. What makes moments like these most unsettling is that it’s all coming from Shane and his insecurities, Leah is, to him and to the audience, a little inscrutable. So it’s up to Shane, with his baggage about his family (as expressed in a shattered relationship with his father that is constantly alluded to), his worth as a writer, his implied working class roots, and his race (constantly being the only Latino in the room) to fill that space.

The script, credited to Garay, first-time feature director Chris Skotchdopole, and indie legend Larry Fessenden, begins as a character study of utter self doubt, a relationship drama that is both crisp and contemporary. That’s why its second act switch into dark farce can be so jarring, as the grinning, sweating, desperate face of caterer John Spinelli (John Speredakos) appears at the door of their borrowed honeymoon retreat, claiming he’s found the wedding cake they left at the venue.

Of course, cake is not really on anyone’s mind, especially Leah who constantly protests that she never really wanted a big wedding anyway. But John’s there, with his frazzled and short-tempered wife, Rose (Lorraine Farris), and there are very good, if self-serving, reasons why Shane isn’t interested in letting them leave early, even if John keeps trying to get them to invest in his harebrained get-rich-quick scheme: the titular crumb catcher.

Speredakos and Farris seem so completely at odds, performance-wise, with both Garay and Peck, that it’s almost hard to see where they’re supposed to mesh. But that’s the point and the source of a sense of creeping menace that’s as disturbing as the accelerating threats from the uninvited guests. The delicacy and diplomacy of Shane and Leah is contrasted with the sideshow theatrics of John and Rose. Speredakos is clearly channeling the somewhat-self-aware desperation of the late, great Joe Spinell at his best, while Farris teeters through scenes like a steaming showgirl kicked out of the club.

Skotchdopole’s greatest success is in weaving these seemingly disparate threads together, to show the interconnectedness of Shane and John’s internal crises and showing how close to being saved each of them really is. As the night pinwheels from drama to farce to tragicomedy, his clear, cold, and yet compassionate eye finds strange harmony in their emotional imbalance.

CRUMB CATCHER plays Friday the 13th At Brooklyn Horror Film Festival

Peter Phok, Graham Reznick, James McKenney, Ti West; Rigo Garay
Chris Skotchdopole, Garay, Lloyd Kauffman & Fessenden

Rigo Garay, GEP filmworker since 2015, has become an up and coming thespian
with shorts (SIZE UP, MISS MILLIE), features (THE LEECH), and TV work (LAW & ORDER).

CRUMB CATCHER and BLACKOUT unspool at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival this weekend

Top: Garay working with director Chris Skotchdopole on the set of CRUMB CATCHER;
Below: Working with Fessenden shooting BLACKOUT
(with Marc Senter and Cody Kostro)

Glass Eye Pix highlights actor John Speredakos, no stranger to GEP,
having worked in projects since 2001, including WENDIGO, I SELL THE DEAD and STRAY BULLETS,
now featured in Fessenden’s BLACKOUT and Chris Skotchdopole’s CRUMB CATCHER.

Both films SOLD OUT at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival this weekend!

top: Speredakos with Ella Rae Peck on the set of BLACKOUT;
bottom, with Lorraine Farris on the CRUMB CATCHER set

Actor Ella Rae Peck featured in TWO Glass Eye productions…

Chris Skotchdopole’s CRUMB CATCHER & Fessenden’s BLACKOUT.
Both unspooling at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival this weekend!

From Certified Forgotten: For this exclusive Brooklyn Horror live show, the Matts will be joined by the prolific founder of Glass Eye Pix himself, Mr. Larry Fessenden. Even better, he’s chosen Adam Wingard’s striking early-career feature A Horrible Way To Die as the movie he’d like to champion. They’ll dig into Larry’s life as an indie horror icon, his journey as a horror fan, then launch into a conversation about the film that helped put Winged on the map before Kong, before Blair Witch, even before You’re Next.

2 Glass Eye Pix productions!

Larry Fessenden’s BLACKOUT
Chris Skotchdopole’s CRUMB CATCHER
plus
Glass Eye Pal Jenn Wexler’s THE SACRIFICE GAME

ALL SOLD OUT!

come on by anyway
for great movies! Parties! Special Events!
Cool Retro Screenings!

John Speredakos celebrates Poe at Poe Fest 2023 and prepares to dole out
Tales From Beyond The Pale swag to Poe-tential fans.