Larry Fessenden

Early life

Fessenden was born in New York City.

Career

Fessenden regards the old Universal Monsters as a substantial influence for him. As an actor, screenwriter, director and film editor, he has worked, in addition to feature films, on such television projects as the NBC horror anthology Fear Itself (2008), directing the episode "Skin and Bones". He wrote the screenplay of Orphanage (2007) with Guillermo del Toro, an English-language remake of El Orfanato.

Fessenden has worked as a mentor to young directors, such as Jim Mickle and Ti West. He has been a producer on projects including Ilya Chaiken's Liberty Kid (2007), Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008), James McKenney's Satan Hates You (2010), West's The House of the Devil (2009) and The Innkeepers (2011), Joe Maggio's The Last Rites of Joe May (2011), and Rick Alverson's The Comedy (2012). Under his low-budget horror banner ScareFlix, Fessenden has produced films including West's The Roost (2005) and Trigger Man (2007), Glenn McQuaid's I Sell the Dead (2008), Maggio's Bitter Feast (2010), and Mickle's Stake Land (2010). More recently he has produced for prolific horror auteur Mickey Keating with Darling (2015) and Psychopaths (2017).

As a character actor, Fessenden has appeared in numerous films, including Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Steve Buscemi's Animal Factory (2000), Brad Anderson's Session 9 (2001) and Vanishing on 7th Street (2010), Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers (2005), Neil Jordan's The Brave One (2007), McQuaid's I Sell the Dead (2008) for which he won best actor at the Slamdance Film Festival; Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008), Mickle's Mulberry Street (2006) and Stake Land (2010), Joe Swanberg's All the Light in the Sky (2011), and Ted Geoghegan's We Are Still Here. Fessenden also starred in the Sundance Film Festival picture River of Grass (1994), which was Reichardt's debut feature, and Margarita Happy Hour (2001) directed by Chaiken. He has appeared on television in Louie, The Strain, and as himself in National Geographic's Brain Games.

In 2010, Fessenden partnered with Glenn McQuaid to launch Tales from Beyond the Pale, a series of macabre audio dramas In 2012, he executive produced and was interviewed in the documentary Birth of the Living Dead, which examines the legacy of Night of the Living Dead. In 2016, he produced, acted, and served as cinematographer in his son Jack's feature debut, Stray Bullets. The same year also saw Fessenden release a book titled Sudden Storm, A Wendigo Reader.

Fessenden has also established a strong presence in the video game world. In 2015, he and Graham Reznick collaborated on writing the video game Until Dawn. Fessenden also played the role of a mysterious stranger armed with a flamethrower in the game itself. The game earned positive reviews and would go on to receive the "Original Property" award in the 2016 BAFTA Games Awards. Fessenden and Reznick also set a Guinness World Record for "Longest script for a graphic adventure videogame," with their script reaching 1,000 pages. The two writers would team up again in 2016 to develop a spin-off game known as Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, and later in 2018 for the Until Dawn prequel, The Inpatient.

Fessenden has run the company Glass Eye Pix since 1985 with the mission of "supporting individual voices in the arts." Glass Eye Pix continues to nurture young talent, most recently producing the debut features of Robert Mocker (Like Me, starring Addison Timlin and Fessenden), Ana Asensio (Most Beautiful Island), and Jenn Wexler (The Ranger).

Fessenden's Frankenstein-themed feature, Depraved, which he wrote, directed, edited and produced, was released on Friday the 13th of September, 2019 through IFC Midnight.

His werewolf film Blackout premiered at the 27th International Fantasia Film Festival in July 2023.

Filmography

As actor

As writer

As producer

As director

Awards and honors

Awards

• Won – 1997 Independent Spirit Award Someone to Watch Award (Habit)
• Nominated – 1997 Independent Spirit Award for Best Director (Habit)
• Nominated – 1997 Austin Film Festival Award for Best Feature Film (Habit)
• Won – 1999 Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival Audience Award for Feature Film (Habit)
• Won – 1999 Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival Award for Best Editing (Habit)
• Won – 1999 Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival Award for Best Actor (Habit)
• Won – 2001 Woodstock Film Festival Jury Prize for Best Feature Film (Wendigo)
• Nominated – 2003 Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Screenplay (Wendigo)
• Won – 2007 Sitges Film Festival Maria Honorary Award (Himself)
• Nominated – 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature Film (Wendy and Lucy)
• Won – 2009 AFI Award for Movie of the Year (Wendy and Lucy)
• Nominated – 2010 Piaget Spirit Award for Producing (Himself)
• Won – 2010 Slamdance Special Jury Mention for Best Performance (I Sell the Dead)
• Nominated – 2010 Independent Spirit Award Producers Award (I Sell the Dead and The House of the Devil)
• Won – 2011 Chlotrudis Award for Career So Far (Himself)
• Nominated – 2014 Chicago International Film Festival Audience Choice Award (The ABCs of Death 2)
• Nominated – 2015 Fright Meter Award for Best Supporting Actor (We Are Still Here)
• Nominated – 2016 Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Supporting Actor (We Are Still Here)
• Won – 2016 BAFTA Games Award for Original Property (Until Dawn)
• Won – 2017 Develop Award for Best Performance (Until Dawn: Rush of Blood)

Honors

• 2011 – Inducted into the Fangoria Hall of Fame
• 2011 – Total Film Icon of Horror at the London FrightFest Film Festival

References

References

1. Southern, Nathan. "Larry Fessenden Biography". [[The New York Times]].
2. "Larry Fessenden. The Last Winter. 2006 | MoMA".
3. (July 2025). "Icons Interview with Larry Fessenden". IconsOfFright.com.
4. "New York horror mogul Larry Fessenden". Fangoria.
5. Kohn, Eric. (April 15, 2011). "A Kingmaker in the Realm of Cheapie Horror". [[The New York Times]].
6. "Sojourn Records".
7. Casciato, Cory. (October 23, 2013). "Larry Fessenden on Birth of the Living Dead". [[Westword]].
8. McDonagh, Maitland. (February 8, 2017). "High School Auteur: Teenager Jack Fessenden makes an auspicious genre feature debut with ''Stray Bullets''". [[Film Journal International]].
9. "Sudden Storm: A Wendigo Reader".
10. Graham, Roy. (2015-10-26). "Here's What Happens When Great Indie Horror Directors Make a Video Game". [[IndieWire]].
11. "2016 Games Original Property | BAFTA Awards".
12. (26 August 2015). "Longest script for a graphic adventure videogame".
13. "Supermassive Games - Until Dawn: Rush of Blood".
14. "Supermassive Games - The Inpatient".
15. Truitt, Brian. (2013-06-25). "Sunday Geekersation: The many horrors of Larry Fessenden". [[USA Today]].
16. "Larry Fessenden / bio".
17. "Larry Fessenden and Gualberto Baña receive the Honorary Maria Award in Sitges 07' - Sitges Film Festival - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya".
18. (September 3, 2019). "Movie Reviews". The New York Times.
19. (January 24, 2009). "Slamdance winners announced".
20. "Larry Fessenden Awards + Nominations – Fandango".
21. "Fright Meter Awards".
22. (July 13, 2017). "Develop Awards 2017 Winners Include Guerrilla Games".