Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon
March 8, Wednesday, 5pm, Grand Auditorium

Barely more than a teenager, Jack Fessenden already has two feature films written, directed and premiered on his resume (in which he also dressed as a composer, editor and producer). The biological stamp — which he assumes with pride — of being the son of Larry Fessenden (one of New York’s gurus of independent horror films) would be of no use without a strong personal contribution.

Chosen as one of the “11 indie filmmakers aged 30 or under that you need to know” (Indiewire, 2017), Jack Fessenden regularly attended his father’s studios during his childhood and adolescence and his curiosity allowed him to learn practical skills. various stages of film production. He made several short films before making his debut, aged 17, in the long format with Stray Bullets, about which Chris O’Falt, in the same Indiewire, said that the most impressive thing was not only the security and economy with which the young filmmaker it dealt with the choreography of violence, but how it found subtlety and depth in the film’s quieter moments. More ambitious, Foxhole, his next work, is part of the long tradition of antiwar humanist film, managing to achieve “an almost abstract beauty” (Josh Siegel, MoMA).

“This kid is going to go far,” said Meira Blaustein, co-founder of the Woodstock Film Festival. It’s already on its way, we would say.

Get schedule and tickets here

A wave of nostalgia and yearning hit this old fan of Physical Media
when GEP pal Dalton Salisbury (The Strangers, Holiday, Dinoboy)
sent this photo from Atlanta while touring with the band Computer Wife.
Long Live Discs and Cover Art!

Hats off to the cinema lovers at Videodrome Atlanta!

From Screen Anarchy: In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Life in a Blender’s Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped, directed by Larry Fessenden.

Larry Fessenden loves Frankenstein. It might even be an understatement to call it love. In an interview I did with him for the Dutch-language film magazine Schokkend Nieuws he stated: “It’s how I see the world. It’s my religion, my mythology.”

Fessenden, who as a director might be most well known for two Wendigo-related features he made (the coming-of-age horror Wendigo and the eco horror The Last Winter), and his contributions for the game Until Dawn, keeps often returning to the same themes in his work. The wendigo-myth is one, but Frankenstein is the other big main staple. In Habit a person wearing a Frankenstein-mask shows up at a party, and N is for Nexus, his segment for ABCs of Death is a cheeky retelling of Frankenstein surrounding a Halloween-themed traffic accident. It is in two other films, in which he explores the limits of science, that his love for Frankenstein most clearly shines through.

Read full article HERE

Glass Eye Collaborator Chadd Harbold (DEPRAVED, MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND, CRUMB CATCHER) produces new flick LINOLEUM. Unspooling this weekend at The Quad in NYC, followed by Q&A’s with stars Jim Gaffigan, Amy Hargreaves, director Colin West and producer Chadd Harbold.

Visit QuadCinema.com for full listings

Much like last year’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Like Me explores the impact of social media on the younger generation. Addison Timlin stars as Kiya, who becomes a small internet sensation after posting a video of her robbing a convenience store online. Her newfound notoriety encourages her to go on a bigger crime spree, and she desires to record every second of it. Along the way, she kidnaps a paint-huffing drifter (played by indie-horror icon Larry Fessenden) and involves him in her criminal escapades in a number of distressing ways.

What sets Like Me apart from other films that wade in the same waters is its unique, chaotic visual style. Director Rob Mockler really knows how to capture the fast-paced world of an internet-obsessed teenager (who also happens to be a psychopath), infusing the film with both grit and blaring neon colors. You wouldn’t be wrong to draw similar comparisons to Spring Breakers, but Like Me is a twisted beast all its own. It’ll gross you out, make you laugh, and get under your skin.

I Can See You is a shot-on-video micro-budget horror film that is much more than the sum of its parts. The setup is pretty simple: three young men and their girlfriends go into the woods for a photoshoot, but the mysterious disappearance of one of the women sparks a gradual descent into madness.

If you can get past the (admittedly) amateurish production quality, you’ll be in for a real treat. This is a truly weird mix of slow-burn horror and absurd, creepy comedy not unlike something you’d find on Tim and Eric. While the movie chugs along at snail’s pace, it masterfully maintains a bizarrely unnerving atmosphere. And if you stick with it, your patience will be rewarded: the film’s climax features a hallucinogenic nightmare sequence that feels ripped directly from David Lynch’s consciousness. This is by no means for everyone, but fans of David Lynch and his style of work will find a lot to like here.

 SEE FULL LIST AT MOVIEWEB

From Mike Gingold: Welcome to The Gingold Files, featuring my past reviews and articles for Fangoria.com that are celebrating “anniversaries” this week, but have long been lost in cyberspace. This time, we’ve got reviews of Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo, Robert Parigi’s Love Object, and others, plus Gary Oldman talking about Hannibal, Matthew Modine on making his horror debut with Altar, and more!

Review: WENDIGO
An archive review from The Gingold Files.

Despite rumors of its demise, the quality independent horror film has proven itself alive and well in the past year, if sometimes difficult to find. 2001 saw a strong crop of low-budget horror features, both foreign and domestic, come to light, and a high-water mark has been set early in 2002 with Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo. If many genre films that approach its quality follow in the next 10 months, it’s going to be a hell of a year.

The New York-based Fessenden made an underground name for himself with his previous feature, the downtown vampire film Habit, but the skill for character-based horror he demonstrated there truly finds full flower in Wendigo. Literally leaving Habit’s urban milieu behind, the new movie follows a city family—commercial photographer George (Jake Weber), his psychiatrist wife Kim (Patricia Clarkson) and their young son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan)—as they drive to a vacation at a farmhouse in wintry upstate New York. Before they even reach the place, their peaceful plans go awry, as George hits a deer that runs in front of their car.

Right from this point, Fessenden presents a scenario in which already upsetting situations can have even direr consequences, setting the stage for further unease to come
…

One of Fessenden’s achievements is that he’s able to evoke a sense of rural menace without condescending to the region or its people; nor does his depiction of the citified George stoop to obvious yuppie clichés. That’s a tribute to the director’s talent for creating very specific people and eliciting strong performances from his actors, with Weber and Clarkson lending nuance to their husband-and-wife characters, Sullivan just terrific as their observant, sensitive son and Speredakos genuinely menacing as the hunter with a grudge. The simple human interaction between these characters carries the story for a long while before the supernatural elements become pronounced, and Fessenden even leaves the fact of the Wendigo’s existence up to debate, with questions of its reality tantalizingly unanswered. Is the monster real, or just a legend that Miles seizes upon to deal with his own fears? Or, as the climactic scenes suggest, does it not only exist, but actually respond to the emotions of one who, like Miles, is conscious of its presence?

This is not to suggest that Wendigo is some kind of existential exercise, but rather that there are plenty of ideas underpinning its haunting, moving and ultimately quite chilling story
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READ WHOLE REVIEW HERE