BENEATH’s Jonny Orsini on Clowning Around with Nathan Lane, Nudity and Killer Piranha

May 232013

WW: What about Beneath? It looks like a horror film that’s a cross between Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and Piranha.

Jonny Orsini: It’s coming out in July, but it’s not just a horror movie. Larry Fessenden is an environmentalist, so he makes these allegories, and the theme is often what happens when man messes with nature and nature comes right back. Beneath is about a bunch of kids who go out to party on a lake and trash it, and then killer fish come to get us. But what’s really scary is what we do to survive. We start turning on one another. It’s pretty cool, and the tagline is: “They’re only friends on the surface.”

Jonny Orsini and Nathan Lane in THE NANCE
Photo by Joan Marcus

Check out the full interview here.

Fessenden Picks a Way to Die in ‘ABCs of Death 2′

May 152013

From deadline.com:

Magnet Releasing is plotting more ABCs of Death following its 2012 high concept horror anthology. The sequel’s directors unveiled today at Cannes will include Oscar nominated animator Bill Plympton, Goya winning director Alex De La Iglesias (The Last Circus), and documentarian Rodney Ascher (Room 237), who lead a new lineup of international directors depicting assorted horrible ways to die. Also tapped to direct segments: Filipino filmmaker Erik Matti, whose On The Job debuts this week in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, founder of Nigerian “Nollywood” cinema Lancelot Imasuen, Lithuania’s Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper (Vanishing Waves), Japan’s Sion Sono (Cold Fish), Vincenzo Natali (Splice, Cube), indie horror icon Larry Fessenden (The Last Winter), Marcus Dunstan (The Collection), France’s Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside, Livid), SXSW breakout E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), twin auteurs Jen and Sylvia Soska (American Mary), Israel’s Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place To Die), Brazil’s Dennison Ramalho (Ninjas, Love For Mother Only), Jerome Sable (The Legend Of Beaver Dam), and BAFTA nominated animator Robert Morgan (Bobby Yeah). Additional directors will be announced this summer. The 26th director will again be selected from a fan contest.

First Look – Poster Art for Chad Crawford Kinkle’s JUG FACE

May 132013

From Movies.BroadwayWorld.com:

Below, get a first look at a new domestic poster for Chad Crawford Kinkle’s JUG FACE, starring Sean Young, Lauren Ashley Carter, Sean Bridgers, Larry Fessenden, and Daniel Manche. The film that made its world premiere at Slamdance 2013 (Kinkle’s script won the 2011 Slamdance Screenwriting & Teleplay Competition Grand Prize) will have its theatrical release later this summer.

In JUG FACE, the pit has spoken. Dawai, the potter of a backwoods community, has crafted a face on a ceramic jug of the person that the pit wants sacrificed. Ada, pregnant with her brother’s child, has seen her face on the jug and hides it in the woods, determined to save the life of her unborn. If she does not sacrifice herself however, the creature from the pit will kill everyone in the village until she does.

EW on Fessenden’s BENEATH

May 062013

They Really Need a Bigger Boat in the Trailer for ‘Beneath’ — VIDEO

by Clark Collis

Filmmaker Larry Fessenden has been busy over the past few years working on his Tales From Beyond the Pale audio series, producing other folks’ movies (such as the post-apocalyptic vampire yarn Stakeland and Ti West’s The Innkeepers), and acting in an impressive array of projects, including this August’s fantastic home invasion horror-comedy You’re Next. But the indie-horror overlord hasn’t actually directed a film since 2006′s Ron Perlman-starring, eco-aware terror tale, The Last Winter. Now, Fessenden has broken the surface with Beneath — a tale of teens, a leaky boat, and a bloodthirsty, underwater predator — that the director made in cahoots with Chiller TV.

The film’s world premiere took place at this weekend’s Stanley Film Festival and you can check out the new trailer below.

Read the full EW article here.

Check out more coverage of the trailer at Fangoria and Shock Till You Drop.

Indiewire post on Fessenden’s BENEATH

May 042013

How Larry Fessenden’s Chiller-Produced Shocker ‘Beneath’ Wrestles With the Made-For-TV Formula

by Eric Kohn

… Fessenden has embraced the cheesy premise and had fun with it while exploring just beyond its borders. A creepy old man whose presence bookends the drama, played by Mark Margolis, lends a dreamlike quality to the narrative that elevates its plot to an abstract level. With its reliance on ambiguity and mood, “Beneath” applies lo-fi aesthetics to an eerie, isolated chamber drama akin to Fessdenen’s last creepy outing, “The Last Winter.” Like that movie and “Wendigo,” the new film also involves a mythological creature only explained in part…

whole article here

Poster for Larry Fessenden’s BENEATH

May 032013

From Indiewire.com:

The Stanley Film Festival, an inaugural festival celebrating the best in independent horror, launches today in Estes Park, Colorado at the famous Stanley Hotel, the haunted landmark that inspired “The Shining”‘s Overlook Hotel. To kick it off, Indiewire is pleased to debut the poster for one of the features screening at the festival, Larry Fessenden’s “Beneath.”

The horror pic centers on a group of friends celebrating their high school graduation at a remote lake location. Things take a turn for the dire when they are confronted with a horrifying deadly underwater predator who tests the bonds of their friendship as they fight for survival. The group ends up stuck in the lake in a sinking boat with no oars. Paranoia soon sets in and the friends soon begin to turn on one another.

Take a look at the haunting poster below:

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World Premiere of Fessenden’s BENEATH

Apr 292013

Larry Fessenden’s newest film, BENEATH, will have its World Premiere at the Stanley Film Festival. The highly anticipated horror festival will be held in Estes Park, Colorado at the hotel that inspired THE SHINING.

When a bloodthirsty, underwater predator leaves a group of teens trapped on a leaking boat in the middle of a lake, the friends must choose between loyalty and survival in this monstrous morality tale.

BENEATH premieres May 3rd at 2:30pm, and Fessenden will be on the scene in-person. Check out BENEATH on the Stanley Film Festival website for more.