MONSTER MOVIEby Mary Glucksman
Director Larry Fessenden
Indie director Larry Fessenden never set out to spend a decade of his life on a trio of metaphysical horror films, but the work evolved that way. Wendigo, a country-weekend chiller about a stressed-out New York family dropped into circumstances they're ill-prepared to accept, completes the cycle with a bang. The film's screened so far only at January's Slamdance but has already logged comparisons to the visceral thrills of The Blair Witch Project and the intellectual conundrums of The Sixth Sense. That's heady stuff for Fessenden, who watched one interested distrbutor back away from Frankenstein-update No Telling (1991), the first of the trio, because he "didn't know how to market it." |
Fessenden's next feature, downtown alterna-vampire tale Habit (1996), is an insider cult item whose commercial prospects were no doubt dashed by distributor skittishness in the wake of box -office duds Nadja and The Addiction, two other vampire-themed indies that came out the previous year. Though Habit won a rave from Roger Ebert and a $20,000 Swatch Someone to Watch Award (given annually at the IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards to "a filmmaker of unique vision who has not yet received due recognition") for Fessenden, Wendigo's apt to be the first Fessenden feature ordinary film fans get to see in theaters.
"They're all about modern man's existential crisis and devastating loneliness, the search for spirtual redemption in the face of godlessness and the unreconcileable disparity between idealism and truth," says Fessenden. "The aesthetic of the horror film (serves best) because it's the most subversive and psychologically raw genre of film."
Wendigo's story unfolds through the experience of eight-year-old Miles ("Malcolm in the Middle"'s Erik Per Sullivan). He's already feeling the strain of his parents' barely contained bickering when the Wendigo, a malevolent shape-shifting spirit with evil intent, is introduced as a myth described by a local shopkeeper. Soon it's hard to tell what's real and what's a product of Miles' imagination. Wendigo was shot by Terry Stacey, an A-list indie cinematographer whose other credits include Love God, Trick, Spring Forward and last season's shortlived TV. drama "Wonderland". Fessenden says he approached the project as an art installation, building models and shooting DV and Super-8 screen tests to hone elements of his story and its impact long before the actors came on board. Starring as Miles' parents are Patricia Clarkson (High Art) and Jake Weber (The Cell).
Fessenden's also an actor – he starred in Habit and was on Sundance screens in Ilya Chaiken's Margarita Happy Hour. Other screen appearances include Bringing Out the Dead, Animal Factory, Hamlet, and Brad Anderson's upcoming features Happy Accidents and Session 9. His ten-year-old band, Just Desserts, featuring Fessenden on sax and vocals, has put out two albums popular on college radio, Sentimental War and Give Up the Ghost.
Larry Fessenden can be contacted by e-mail at larry@glasseyepix.com.
Get the 411 on all of Fessenden's films plus links to a planned graphic novel version of Wendigo at http://www.glasseyepix.com.
Film fan terror central is online at http://www.horrorfilm.about.com
