Larry Fessenden has been working in the margins of the horror genre since the mid-80's. In 1985 he founded Glass Eye Pix, an independent film company with the goal of assembling 'like-minded artists interested in the collaborative and resourceful process of filmmaking'. Through Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden has acted as producer, editor, actor, and director on a number of short and feature length horror films. More importantly, Fessenden's company has provided opportunities for and helped to launch the careers of his many collaborators.

Those who do not pay full attention to the fringes of horror might recognise Fessenden's distinctive junkyard hillbilly visage, which pops up in movies like Jim Jarmusch's BROKEN FLOWERS (opposite Bill Murray!), Martin Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, or indeed any film that may need a toothless and slack-jawed oddball. A few readers may have even spotted Fessenden's brief appearance as the ill-fated abator Craig McManus in Brad Anderson's SESSION 9. More recently Fessenden was shot in a convenience store by Jody Foster in THE BRAVE ONE, and a starring turn in Glass Eye's I SELL THE DEAD.

Fessenden's most notable achievements to date are a pair of films that have more in common with the uncanny tales of Algernon Blackwood than they do with the modern graphic horror. WENDIGO (2003) is a meditation on a child's interpretation the complex and often violent nature of adult relationships, while his most recent film, THE LAST WINTER (2007), uses similar themes to explore man's relationship with the environment. Shortly after the release of THE LAST WINTER, I corresponded with Fessenden about his films, career, and philosophy of horror.


Who are some of your influences as a writer and director?


I read a lot of non-fiction, read a few newspapers and blogs through the week so I'm daily infused with the immediate hysteria of the day. But I don't watch much TV. I admire Algernon Blackwood, Saki (H. H. Munro), the short stories of Roald Dahl, and Dickens. But films have had the greatest influence on me. I grew up watching the old black and white horror movies from the 30's and 40's, and then graduated to the more visceral movies of the 60's and 70's, horror and otherwise. I am influenced by Polanski, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Kurosawa . . .


You've long been associated with horror, and some of your earliest short films can be labelled as such. What attracts you to the genre?


I honestly think some people are more obsessed with death and the existential reality of life, and those with that frame of mind tell stories with death and fear and metaphor in them, and that is horror.


I don't know if this is the same for you, but some of my earliest childhood memories are a fondness for all things ghostly and monstrous. I even had a Wolf Man action figure like Erik Per Sullivan's character in WENDIGO. Where do you think this horror-inclined frame of mind comes from? How does it develop?


I can only say it was utterly intuitive for me. As a kid I was very melancholy and sensitive and phobic, and I also related very much to the monsters who in those days were portrayed as outsiders: Frankenstein's monster, Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Years later, I saw the stories as cautionary tales, with metaphors about social ills and human arrogance, so the genre has worked for me on so many levels. Only now, where so many films called horror are in-your-face-fast-cut depraved pointless shock fests made with studio money for brutish teens do I lose my mojo for the genre.


The horror in both WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER do not rely on gore and cheap scares. Instead they invoke awe and wonder--reminiscent of Blackwood, Machen and Lovecraft--and from that, a sense horror. Do you see yourself working in any particular tradition?


I am aware of the traditions I'm following, even when I'm not deliberately emulating any one artist. I write from intuition and personal experience. It means a lot to me that I am compared to other artists because it gives a context to my work.


Which artists do you find yourself compared to? Have you ever been surprised by any of these comparisons?


I am often compared to Val Lewton, which is funny because as a kid I couldn't bear the slow moving "subtle" horror stories and now of course that's precisely what I am creating myself. I have been compared to Polanski, which seems more apt, as I am very inspired by his sense of realism and use of surrealism in films such as REPULSION, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE TENANT, CUL DE SAC, and MACBETH.


Do you have trouble finding funding for films that challenge the viewer's perception of horror or that isn't necessarily seen as 'pop horror'?


Yes. No one wants to fund my films. I have been lucky to work with the producer Jeff Levy-Hinte who has found me funding.


The unreliable narrator is often used in strange tales to leave loopholes for both natural and supernatural explanations. Do you feel strongly about either such reading in WENDIGO?


Absolutely. I want both to exist. All my movies are plotted to have two truths living side by side, the real and the imagined. I believe that is how people are naturally wired: to take in reality through a filter of metaphor. It is our coping mechanism. The problem is when our metaphors become our reality, then things get scary and twisted. All my films explore the subjectivity of existence.


Do you think a fantastical reading of THE LAST WINTER could potentially detract from its real-world environmental message?


If it does, so be it. The film is first and foremost an artistic expression, an exploration of mood. But that mood is a response to the existence of global warming and a planet in duress. Just because this topic is discussed in Congress, doesn't mean it is "political". Global Warming is personal, it is happening to our planet, our home. That elicits a personal, emotional response. This topic does not belong to politicians.


How closely do the final cuts of your films resemble your original ideas?


I'm lucky if I capture the mood I imagined. In every way the film changes from the script and that abstract object floating in your head that is your film. But it is still thrilling to make a film, and some of what you get, by virtue of being real, is satisfying. Still, you leave a part of yourself behind, that pure vision. To answer more specifically, the film is very much like the script with maybe 10 pages of dialogue cut and five scenes cut.


A major theme in WENDIGO is how a child experiences and interprets the adult world, but despite this the film almost seems to have been marketed as a monster movie. How did this happen?


The film business is run by simple-minded sheep trying to appeal to consumers being treated like simple-minded sheep so they act like simple-minded sheep. I fought the company over the cover--I believe to this day the guy who deigned my American DVD cover never saw the film--anyway it's a big topic, and yes, WENDIGO has been mis-marketed. And the people who suffer are the consumers who are not getting the movie they expected, and the filmmaker who garners a backlash.


Not to mention you lose those who may be looking for your particular style of horror, but are put off by daft advertising! If it's any consolation I felt I had found an undiscovered gem when I first watched WENDIGO. I know others feel the same way.


Though in all fairness, the British DVD cover was the poster I designed for the U.S. theatrical release, and that seemed subtle enough: a blurred shot of a kid running through snowy woods.


In WENDIGO, Jake Weber, who plays the father, says, 'A lot of people make up stories to make sense of the world. It's a big world after all and nobody really understand how it all works . . . That's what myths are. They help us talk about stuff.' How closely does this resemble your own view of storytelling?


That would be my way of explaining myths to a kid. I wrote that when I didn't have a kid, and I talk to my son differently, but that's the message.


It may be simple, but it's succinct and I think sums up WENDIGO's theme. This line also defines the root of the horror, like you said, it's when metaphors become reality that things get scary.


That in a nutshell is what my films are about.


Both WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER utilise the wendigo myth, the former as a way to address internal tension, the latter to address external. How did your fascination with this myth start and what continues to draw you to this motif?


I was told the story of the wendigo by a third grade teacher during "story hour". I never forgot it. Before writing the first film about a childhood memory, I researched what the Wendigo means in native culture and what I read played into other themes that interest me: insatiable hunger, (spiritual) cannibalism, madness, retribution--and aesthetically, the wendigo is a wind spirit, an antlered spirit, a giant, it's very allusive, and I find it compelling.


The Algonquin myth of the wendigo has been invoked in many mediums, but one of the most popular is Algernon Blackwood's well-known story. Do you have any comments on this story or Blackwood's other writings?


Blackwood's 'The Wendigo' is exceptional. The mood he creates with natural phenomena is unique and outstanding. 'The Willows' is his masterpiece.


I think some themes from 'The Willows', the great and unknowable projections of the environment, overlaps with parts of THE LAST WINTER. Was this intentional?


With The Last Winter I was more conscious of trying to evoke elements of Blackwood's 'The Wendigo'. There are a number of allusions to this story in my film. But when I began writing the script with Robert Leaver, the first thing I handed him to read was 'The Willows'.


The Last Winter is a supernatural film with strong environmental themes. Was tying your environmental beliefs with the uncanny a natural step for you?


Completely natural. Tuning into nature, the uncanny, the great mysterious trip of existence, and then its potential poisoning and end, this is all related in my mind.


What's the reception for THE LAST WINTER been like so far?


After a long and difficult period trying to land distribution, the film came out in limited release September 2007 in the U.S. and got a very good critical response. I have no complaints.

It (came)out exclusively at Blockbuster with its own set of DVD 'extras' on 20 May 2008 and then (came)out to the rest of the vendors with a whole new set of 'extras' on 29 July 2008.


You are a supporter of independent horror films, generally as a producer and actor. How do you choose your projects and what sort of talent appeals to you?


I do not seek out projects. I tend to work with people I know and the people they know, and that roster of people expands enough that we all stay busy. With acting, I know some casting agents in town and they keep me in mind when they need someone with a missing front tooth.


Although I hesitate to use the term 'torture-porn' (because people can't agree on a definition), how do you view the current trend of sensational gore in popular horror cinema?


My main regret is that because of the torture-porn conversation, we are no longer talking about the other types of film under the horror banner. The problem is that violent horror has become mainstream because it is very lucrative and there is something unseemly about major corporations putting out smut. Horror used to be a subversive genre, challenging bourgeois assumptions and expressing outrage. It has been co-opted.


Has this trend noticeably affected financing or production of the type of films you want to make?


As a filmmaker you have to believe that the next film you want to make is just what the public and the marketplace are craving, and you have to convince everyone around you it's true.


Are there any modern horror directors that you admire? Anyone in particular that you think is forging new paths in an old genre?


I am totally unqualified to answer this question. I am very busy and haven't kept up watching movies. I know there are remarkable films being made in the genre and despite my moaning about co-opting and torture porn, there are good scary films being made, you just have to find them. I loved THE HOST, PAN'S LABYRINTH, DIARY OF THE DEAD, MULBERRY STREET [in which Fessenden plays a small role]. There's plenty of good stuff going on.


Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about?


Not that I wish to talk about. I am very private when I start out with a project: I don't want to jinx it. I have a few ideas that could be made at different level budgets.


I hope you keep us updated when you're ready to share any of your forthcoming projects. Many of our readers will undoubtedly be interested.


I will be honoured to keep you posted.


Are there any books or short stories you would like to adapt? Or perhaps any film you would like to remake and brand with your unique vision of horror?


There are a few things, but I'm primarily interested in doing original work. There's a book called HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Z. Danielewski that is beyond my abilities, but there is a fine evocative work. It chilled me when I read it.


Do you intend to keep making films within the horror genre?


Without a doubt.

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You can find out more about Larry Fessenden's recent film THE LAST WINTER at www.thelastwinter.net, and his independent film production company Glass Eye Pix at www.glasseyepix.com.

Visit Brian J. Showers at www.brianjshowers.com

(C) October 2007-January 2008