TBT 2008, A.J. Bowen, Mary Woronov, Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Greta Gerwig
and writer / director Ti West on set of THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL.

Get the Steelcase Edition Blu-Ray from Dark Sky Selects,
the perfect stocking stuffer.

Now for sale at Vinegar Syndrome, Film Desk and Elara Pictures presents
Richard Sandler’s THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE,
a  Glass Eye Pix and Scorpio Dogs production.

Shot on video over six years in the mid-1990s by legendary photographer Richard Sandler, The Gods of Times Square is a portrait of the “Crossroads of the World” at the end of the millennium, told through the words of its denizens, particularly the various street preachers that populated every corner.  Now over twenty five years since its transformation to the unrecognizable, the Times Square known for generations only exists in memory and dreams, one of many treasured, vanquished New York demimondes. The Gods of Times Square is now available in an extended version through the auspices of Josh Safdie, Elara Pictures and The Film Desk.

The Film Desk is a theatrical and disc distributor founded in 2007 by Jake Perlin, dedicated to releasing masterpieces of international cinema, with a focus on titles never before released in the United States, or long out of circulation, primarily in new 35mm prints.

Packed with special features including 6 films from Richard Sandler and a
booklet with an interview by Fessenden and critic/author Ed Halter.
BUY NOW!

Jordan Gass-Pooré, Rigo Garay, John Speredakos, Emily Bennett, Jenn Wexler, Jeremy Holm, Larry Fessenden, Gaby Leyner, Matt Rocker
BELOW:Abi Lieff

I came up with the concept for “Orpheus” this time last year. In the past I’ve helped to produce Tales (here’s looking at you Seasons 2 and 3!) but this would be my first as a Tales writer/director. I knew I wanted to write an episode that would allow for a variety of soundscapes and that would let me explore multiple horror sub-genres. I wanted to craft a story that could start intimate and expand into something epic – a chamber piece that spins its way into a blockbuster. The magic of the audio drama! One moment, an intimate phone conversation; the next, nuclear explosions and planes falling from the sky. It’s all possible in audio. Which ultimately led me to realize that this creative process could help me cope with the major anxieties I was having around the advent of AI – at that point, primarily the rise in popularity of ChatGPT. 

As I started to develop the story, I knew immediately that I wanted Emily Bennett and Jeremy Holm to star as the couple at the center of it, both fantastic actors and my good friends. I pitched Emily on the idea while tucked into a corner of Jack Fessenden’s childhood bedroom during Glass Eye’s legendary Christmas party. She said yes, as did Jeremy soon after, and I got to work writing, with their voices top of mind. 

We recorded “Orpheus” in February with Matt Rocker at Underground Audio NYC, the cast rounded out with Glass Eye regulars and newcomers alike, over the course of two days, and then I dove into the dialogue edit. While editing, I got a coffee with incredible singer/songwriter and my good friend Shayfer James, described the concept to him and that I was searching for a song to serve as the couple’s first wedding dance, as well as the theme for the episode. He sent me his song “Waiting,” which I instantly fell in love with. With that in place and the dialogue edit complete, Matt worked his sound design wizardry, and the episode started to come to life.

We set the Tale aside for a little bit while I worked on another project, and when we picked it back up in the fall, AI in the real world had grown exponentially (as I guess you would expect from it.) Writing “Orpheus” back in January, the Tale seemed very science fiction. Now with Sora, Claude, a few weeks ago Nano Banana, et al, AI has become a very real, inescapable part of our lives and our society. (The day before we released “Orpheus,” I read this article in the Independent – “If You Could Speak To Your Dead Grandmother Forever, Would You?”) The future is apparently here.

But at any rate, there was a Tale to release! In November, brilliant composer Antoni Maiovvi came aboard and crafted a score capturing all of the sub-genres I’d been excited to explore – domestic drama, psychosexual tech thriller, end-of-the-world apocalypse blockbuster. We mixed the Tale at Underground Audio with Matt working his magic. And on our final day of mixing, Larry and Glenn recorded The Host’s intro and outro, which was super fun to see come together. 

Meanwhile, as we were finishing up the Tale, Brian Level was making my poster art dreams come true, with a modern spin on the classic gothic women-running-away-from-houses paperback novel covers.

There you have it! A year in the life of an episode of Tales From Beyond the Pale. 

And probably obvious to say, but this episode was 100% made by HUMANS. There was no AI in the making of this Tale. Sorry, Orpheus!

– Jenn Wexler

“ORPHEUS“

A recently widowed woman uses a new AI technology to be able to talk to her dead husband. 

Writer, director Jenn Wexler

Producers: Larry Fessenden, and Glenn McQuaid, with Jordan Gass-Pooré and Rigo Garay
Associate Producer: Sean Redlitz
Featuring the voice talents of Emily Bennett, Jeremy Holm, Abi Lieff, Estelle Olivia, Gaby Leyner, Glenn McQuaid, Matt Rocker, Rigo Garay, Larry Fessenden, John Speredakos
Sound Recording, Design and Mix by Matt Rocker at Underground Audio, NYC
Score by Antoni Maiovvi
“Waiting” written and performed by Shayfer James
Poster by Brian Level

Visit TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE for all 51 TALES, VIDEOS, PHOTOS & More

Wendy Carroll is driving to Ketchikan, Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at the Northwestern Fish cannery, and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy. WENDY AND LUCY addresses issues of sympathy and generosity at the edges of American life, revealing the limits and depths of people’s duty to each other in tough times.

Based on the short story “TRAIN CHOIR” by Jon Raymond.

A contemplative movie like this clears all the whirling, meaningless imagery out of our heads.
–THE NEW YORKER

…the film manages that rare feat of being both remarkably prescient
and modest at the same time.
–TIME OUT

The victories and insights gained in Wendy and Lucy
are hard-won and small in stature, but they linger on the mind.
–THE STAR

Watch now on Mubi

Ramping up to GEP’s 40th Anniversary,
we celebrate 40+ projects
that have come from our shop

Directed by GEP collaborator James Felix McKenney (AUTOMATONS, HYPOTHERMIA)
Starring: Don Wood, Christine Spencer, Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister,
Michael Berryman, Debbie Rochon, Larry Fessenden

From Vinegar Syndrome: Glass Eye Pix (“one of the indie scene’s most productive and longest-running companies” —Filmmaker Magazine) is the fierce independent NYC-based production outfit headed by art-horror auteur Larry Fessenden (BLACKOUT, DEPRAVED, BENEATH, ABC’s of DEATH 2, NBC’s Fear Itself episode “SKIN AND BONES,” THE LAST WINTER, WENDIGO, HABIT, NO TELLING). Glass Eye Pix is responsible for narrative films, documentaries, books, comics, audio plays, and other unique work designed to inspire and contrast with corporate media. Fessenden (winner of the Someone to Watch Spirit Award) has operated the company since 1985, with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts.

Homicidal maniac Marc (Don Wood) is constantly driven by demons buried deep within his soul while party girl Wendy (Christine Spencer) lives life fast and hard without a second thought to the consequences. Their separate paths will eventually cross, but will it be on the road to salvation or the highway to hell?

• Region A Blu-ray
• Feature film in HD for the first time
• Stereo and 5.1 audio mixes
• Original SATAN HATES YOU trailer
• 22-minute “making of” featurette
• “Creepy Christmas” short film – “December 23rd”
• “Creepy Christmas” short film – “Eighteen Reindeer”
• 13 TV segments from the film featuring Angus Scrimm, Pauley Perrette and author Max Brooks
• Audio Commentary with writer-director James Felix McKenney, cast & crew members Laree Love and Noah DeFilippis
• English SDH subtitles

From OCN and Vinegar Syndrome
BUY NOW

From Filmmaker James Siewert:

Larry and I started talking about a year and half ago. 

In April of 2024 I made a small piece of animation that was the seed of the idea: frames of animation built up on a rotating platform. I was interested in the dynamic between the growing sculptural form of accumulating frames and the more two dimensional experience of the interior animation. The sculpture becomes the carcass of the film’s expired animated life, and by reconciling the needs of the sculpture with the needs of the animation, both end up taking on unexpected organic qualities, suggesting further growth. 

When Larry sent me the song, I think I had already started envisioning a Babel-like construction on the rotating platform, being inspired by my printmaking professor Lothar Osterburg’s series of prints reinterpreting Bruegel’s Babel. “Tender” – with its themes of accumulation, consumption and decay, seemed like the perfect opportunity. Larry told me that the single’s leading image was in fact the Tower of Babel, and it felt like we had to do it. 

I started vaguely planning different sites on the tower that would represent different lyrical moments – but allowed the construction to be fairly improvisational too. Often producer Walker White and I would decide to do something different than what we had planned on the day if we happened to find something interesting to incorporate into the construction. The election happened while we were animating and influenced and augmented the inclusion of newspaper sections.

Larry was basically hands off – allowing us to follow whatever weird fancies happened to strike. His one requirement was that a natural disaster of some kind happen to conclude the video. Fire was of course the most exciting to all of us. I think most successful music video are essentially 3 or 4 act compositions and that in the best ones the final rug pull slightly zags, taking a savvy viewer a bit by surprise. The fire I think keeps things fresh just at the moment that novelty of that the “growing tower” concept for the video has worn off. Figuring out how to incorporate the live action fire into the otherwise stop-motion video was another moment in which the reconciliation of different artistic impulses creates a more interesting experience.

Larry sometimes calls me an “architectural filmmaker”, which leads to some mild bickering – the chief pleasure of our collaborations. Part of the reason why I object to the phrase is that it suggests the filmmaker as having a master blueprint where the actual making of the film is just a paint-by-numbers affair where an essentially static plan is executed. I’m far from capable of this sort Hitchcockian masterminding. What I like about filmmaking excavation and discovery – the emergence of solutions through playful trial and error. When we make a film we set ourselves problems – different artistic impulses, or differing ideas amongst collaborators. The process of synthesizing sculpture and animation – or stop motion and live action – is not one that is done on paper ahead of time, but by following our noses, by remaining stubbornly playful and curious even as the walls close in around us.

Check out the video on Vimeo

Director, Cinematographer – James Park Siewert
Producers – James Siewert, Walker White, Larry Fessenden
Animators – James Siewert, Walker White, Ewan Creed, Ruth Lichtman, Lily Rand, Auden Lincoln Vogel
Motor Programming – Oz Hewett
Art Department – James Siewert, Walker White, Ewan Creed, Lily Rand, Jacqueline Brockel, Emma Bautista, Amelia Thompson, Trey Scantlen, Minna Brackett, Madaline Hartl, Isaac Woon, Owen Campbell, Auden Lincoln Vogel, Larry Fessenden, Beck Underwood, Brent Green Special Thanks – Natalie Hoffman, Jason Sondock, Rebecca Park, Laurence Tobey

“Tender”
from the album CURTAINS by Just Desserts
written and sung by Larry Fessenden

Tom Laverack – Guitar & Vocals
Larry Fessenden – Vocals & Saxes
Mark Ambrosino – Drums & Percussion
Dave Richards – Bass
David Morgan – Piano
Jack Petruzzelli – Electric Guitar
Jack Fessenden – Electric Guitar

Listen to “CURTAINS” by Just Desserts

And dive into the world of Just Desserts at
justdesserts.nyc

JEFF FERRELL, AURELIO VOLTAIRE

DEMONATRIX written and directed by Jeff Ferrell and Aurelio Voltaire
starring Jeff Ferrell, Aurelio Voltaire, Hannah Fierman, Doug Bradley, Larry Fessenden, Nivek Ogre

At the age of 10, Aurelio Voltaire bought a super 8 camera and taught himself the art of stop-motion animation. At 17, he ran away from home to New York City where by 18, he had become an award-winning animator and director working on station IDs for MTV and national spots for international brands. Through his stop-motion short films, Aurelio Voltaire was able to explore his more fantastic, monster-filled visions, each narrated by a singer he admired including Danny Elfman, Gerard Way, Blondie front-woman Deborah Harry, Psychedelic Furs frontman, Richard Butler and new wave pioneer, Gary Numan. These five shorts earned Voltaire 35 film festival awards. After achieving success as an internationally touring recording artist and author, Aurelio Voltaire has circled back around to his original passion to make his first feature length creature feature with co-director, Jeff Ferrell. Jeff Ferrell is a filmmaker, actor and musician. He has made three feature films as writer/director: Ghostlight, Dead West (which was picked up by RLJ Entertainment and Netflix) and Holiday Hell, a horror anthology starring Re-Animator’s Jeffrey Combs. The Demonatrix is Jeff and Aurelio’s first feature film as co-writers, co-directors and co-stars, and has been 10 years in the making.

SCREENS FRI DEC 5 at 9:45 PM with cast and crew in attendance! Get your tickets now!