“The Slaughtered” came about, as so many of my creations seem to come about, as a result of long conversations with Larry Fessenden about politics, philosophy and the state of humanity. In this case, we were discussing John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance,” a thought experiment where individuals must build a society and its attending laws without knowing where they stand in the social hierarchy, and so out of sheer self-interest and self-preservation they will be motivated to create laws which are fair to everyone. I started thinking about this idea and how it applies to our current American society, where so often those at the top, the wealthy, the politically aligned of all colors and stripes, operate with a breezy, carefree nonchalance, buffered from any consequences stemming from their actions and ideas by the wide, soft cushion of their exalted status. I started to imagine a scenario where the chickens come home to roost, where a smug, wealthy, “do-gooder” investor is caught unawares by the savage reverberations of a single act of moral duplicity. Thus “The Slaughtered” was born.

For the cast, I knew I wanted to work again with James Le Gros, with whom I’d made one film (“Bitter Feast” 2010) and one previous tale (“Cannibals, Season 3.) As I wrote the script I imagined James’ voice in my head – refined, intelligent, a little mischievous – in the role of William Baxter, the morally upstanding ethical investor with a dark secret. For the role of Henry Munger, the town wild man, I was unsure, but then I met Alex Hurt on the set of Larry’s film, “Blackout” (2023). Watching Alex as Charley Barrett, the tortured artist/werewolf at the center of the film, it occurred to me that he would be the perfect Henry Munger, a tortured individual who, like Charlie, is highly civilized and utterly savage at the same time, these opposing impulses ceaselessly pulling at the jagged edges of his existence.

The dialogue was recorded in bits and pieces over the course of several weeks due to scheduling conflicts, including one marathon session with James Le Gros in a studio in LA and Alex Hurt in NYC. Underground Audio’s Matt Rocker somehow managed to weave it all together. In what was easily one of the most thrilling recording sessions I’ve ever been a part of, Dave Eggar, cellist extraordinaire, composed the score on the fly, listening to the radio play and then riffing, layering and just generally blowing our minds with the virtuosity of his playing and the acuity of his creative reflexes.

I’m so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to create this Tale. There’s something so pure about audio storytelling, and as a filmmaker it’s always good to be shaken up a bit and reminded of the power of sound as a storytelling engine. So much of what William and Henry say and do and the way they say and do it is ripped straight from my being. I hope listeners enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

—Joe Maggio, Nov 12 2025

TOP: Sketches by Trevor Denham for the poster. BELOW: Dave Eggar and Maggio discuss the score.

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TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE

Season 6 Episode 1 Release date 13 November 2025

THE SLAUGHTERED written and directed by Joe Maggio

A wealthy, “do-gooder” investor is caught unawares by the savage reverberations of a single act of moral duplicity.  Featuring the voice talents of James Le Gros, Alex Hurt, Emily Bennett, Eleanor Hutchins, Imani-Jade-Powers, Monica Wyche, Jordan Gass-Pooré and Matt Rocker. Sound design and mix by Matt Rocker at Underground Audio. Score by Dave Eggar. Produced by Glenn McQuaid & Larry Fessenden. Poster by Tevor Denham.

Visit TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE for all 50 TALES, VIDEOS, PHOTOS & More

Ilya Chaiken’s LIBERTY KID, Larry Fessenden’s DEPRAVED, Jack Fessenden’s FOXHOLE
each grapple with the devastation of war on the psyche
in three distinctly different genres

10th Anniversary!

Tuesday, November 11 at 6:30: Q&A with director Rick Alverson and star Gregg Turkington (On Cinema at the Cinema) moderated by Owen Kline

A broken, aging comedian tours the California desert, lost in a cycle of third-rate venues, novelty tourist attractions, and vain attempts to reach his estranged daughter. By day, he slogs through the barren landscape, inadvertently alienating every acquaintance. At night, he seeks solace in the animation of his onstage persona. Fueled by the promise of a lucrative Hollywood engagement, he trudges through a series of increasingly surreal and volatile encounters. In Alverson’s hallucinatory fugue, Gregg Turkington stars as The Comedian, caught in a struggle between being the center of attention and the object of alienation, occasionally challenged by an unexpected cast of characters played by Tye Sheridan, John C. Reilly, Michael Cera, and Amy Seimetz.

Fessenden served as (one of many) Executive Producer.

By MICHAEL GINGOLD

As Glass Eye Pix celebrates its 40th anniversary this week, the bastion of independent genre storytelling has relaunched one of its perennial projects. Last week, we broke the news that the horror audio series TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE is coming back for its sixth season; below, Glass Eye founder/filmmaker Larry Fessenden talks about that return and how it came to happen.

TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE was launched by Fessenden and co-creator Glenn McQuaid (director of I SELL THE DEAD and the new THE RESTORATION OF GRAYSON MANOR) in 2010, to recapture the thrills and terror of old-style radio shows. Over the course of five seasons and 49 episodes (check ’em out here), TALES has showcased a wide range of horror talent as writers and actors, with a number of the episodes recorded live at festivals and other public events. Then the series encountered an unexpected interruption, as Fessenden relates…

After several years on hiatus, what led to TALES coming back this year?

TALES takes a lot of effort, and Glenn and I worked on it quite regularly for 10 years. Then–and I hate blaming COVID for everything, but it did put a damper on both live shows and studio recordings–that momentum slowed. We did do a 10th-anniversary quarantine Zoom with many of our regular collaborators on October 27, 2020 (see it below).

After the pandemic, Glenn had a movie [RESTORATION] to make and had to focus on that, and I had some films to mount as well, so TALES moved to the back burner. We had updated it to a podcast format, so we felt it was safe for fans to discover in our absence. The only Tale we recorded in the early ’20s was a reading by [Glass Eye regular] John Speredakos of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” with a sax score by myself. But that was an outlier, because to our mind, the TALES brand has always been about original work. The other exception was an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound” by Stuart Gordon. It’s hard to refuse Stuart Gordon!

What was the selection process for the new season of stories?

Our process is fairly deliberate. We approach people we’ve worked with over time who haven’t had a go at it before, like Jenn Wexler [THE RANGER, THE SACRIFICE GAME], who had produced a couple of seasons but never written for us. Or new artisans we might have just worked, with like Emily Bennett [his co-star in the new BLOOD SHINE]. Ted Geoghegan [who directed Fessenden in WE ARE STILL HERE and BROOKLYN 45] had written a Tale years ago that didn’t get made, so it was fun to bring him back. We tend to revisit writers as well, like Joe Maggio, Graham Reznick, April Snellings and Clay McLeod Chapman. Between us, we have a wide circle of horror pals to prod and new people to approach.

I will say it is also curated; even from our pals, we’ll ask for several loglines before deciding, so the season has a rhythm–an old-fashioned creature feature butted up against an AI apocalypse story. Glenn and I have to feel inspired. I don’t believe in making work for the sake of creating content. Life’s too short and the purse strings too tight for that.

Is there any talent involved that you’ve wanted to get for a long time?

The format is such that you can easily imagine getting writers or actors of stature to commit to a short-form project or a couple hours of recording. But there are always logistics in show biz, and this is a project where we try to avoid the trappings of agents and egos. We are grateful for the folks who do hop on board; we’ve engaged some swell talent willing to play in our sandbox.

What new ground were you looking to break this season?

I’ll be happy if we can just keep the quality up, and tell unique, immersive stories that deliver the chills.

What can you say about your and McQuaid’s own stories for this lineup?

I’ll just say that Glenn has already written three great Tales for the season–he is a restless writer–but the one he’s landed on is dripping with atmosphere and quietly chilling. I hope that’s the one we put into production, but you never know… As for me, I like having the challenge hovering over me of needing to write a Tale; as David Lynch might have put it, it keeps me fishing for that idea. In the meantime, I busy myself with getting these others made, along with Jordan Gass-Pooré, our co-producer.

How has TALES evolved over the course of its 15 years?

That’s a question for the listener to answer. We have definitely played with the conventions of the genre in various ways; check out Glenn’s INT. COFFIN – NIGHT, a Tale with no dialogue. But I would say that the most significant thing to happen in the last 15 years is that the idea of audio dramas has gone from an “old-timey” throwback to one of the most potent formats of our time, as the number of podcasts and audiobooks has ballooned. I remember saying in the early days of Spotify that they should carry audio dramas–ha! So here we are.

Your movie BLACKOUT was based on one of your Tales. Do you envision more of them being adapted into feature films?

BLACKOUT was actually an idea I pitched for the TV show FEAR ITSELF, but they wanted me to do something different. Then I pitched it as a found-footage story for V/H/S, and they didn’t see it. I decided to do it as a Tale when I had to come up with an idea for an impending live show, and that production gave me the clarity to see the movie. So TALES is a format for working through ideas, and we hope it is inspiring for all the artisans who get involved to make it part of their creative journey.

Read at Rue Morgue

Stay Tuned for Season 6 Episode 1
Dropping Nov 13

By Maya Salam

Ever since the mad scientist Frankenstein cried, “It’s alive!” in the 1931 classic film directed by James Whale, pop culture has never been the same.

Few works of fiction have inspired more adaptations, re-imaginings, parodies and riffs than Mary Shelley’s tragic 1818 Gothic novel, “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” the tale of Victor Frankenstein, who, in his crazed quest to create life, builds a grotesque creature that he rejects immediately.

The story was first borrowed for the screen in 1910 — in a single-reel silent — and has directly or indirectly spawned hundreds of movies and TV shows in many genres. Each one, including Guillermo del Toro’s new “Frankenstein,” streaming on Netflix, comes with the same unspoken agreement: that we collectively share a core understanding of the legend.

Here’s a look at the many ways the central themes that Shelley explored, as she provocatively plumbed the human condition, have been examined and repurposed time and again onscreen…

…And in the 2019 psychologically bleak thriller DEPRAVED, an Army surgeon, grappling with trauma, pieces together a bundle of body parts known as Adam…

Read more at the NYT

Welcome to The Tower, a podcast that explores the films that took the rulebook, doused it in gasoline and lit a match. The Tower tarot card represents chaos and the upheaval of old forms, and here I will focus on films that did just that for my brilliant guests.
The films that changed them forever are the films that belong in The Tower.
In each episode, Bennett interviews visionaries in cinema, from directors to festival programmers, from actors to writers, from critics to psychoanalysts, and explores their favorite paradigm-shifting films.
The fire is burning. Come dance with us in the flames.

Crew
The Tower is created and hosted by Emily Bennett
produced by Jordan Gass-Pooré and presented by Glass Eye Pix.
Technical adviser is Justin Brooks.
Sound engineering by Mark Bush.
Original music composed by Graham Reznick.
Art by Steak Mntn.

EPISODE 1 FEATURING LARRY FESSENDEN DROPS 11.10.25

Tommy and Gene uncover more than they bargain for when strolling through a graveyard at midnight.
Writer and Score, Glenn McQuaid; Director, Larry Fessenden.
Featuring Jaxon Bartok and Leon Barrett.
Tales Theme by Jeff Grace.
Poster by Brian Level.