The Films of Larry Fessenden: Volume 1 - Habit & No Telling

For forty years, Glass Eye Pix and its founder, Larry Fessenden, have been leaving their bloody mark on independent genre filmmaking in America. To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Glass Eye Pix, Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present brand new 4K restorations of Larry Fessenden’s shot-on-film features, starting at the beginning with NO TELLING (1991) and HABIT (1995).

NO TELLING

Lillian and Geoffrey (stage actors Miriam Healy-Louie and Stephen Ramsey) are a seemingly happy couple who relocate to the country so that Geoffrey can focus better on his work, which Lillian knows little about. As she begins to investigate what Geoffrey spends his days doing in their shed, she discovers a trail of medical experiments that she can’t explain. Eventually, their relationship begins to unravel, with both parties consumed by madness.

Larry Fessenden’s first feature-length film to be shot on film, NO TELLING, reimagines Mary Shelley’s immortal Frankenstein tale as an upstate chamber drama that gives way to something much more sinister. A prescient parable about man’s relationship with nature and the darkness inherent in us all, making it a potent precursor for the films that would follow in Fessenden’s career. Shot on location in upstate New York, entirely on Super 16mm film, NO TELLING is an essential entry in the canon of American independent horror cinema of the 1990s, now lovingly restored in 4K by Vinegar Syndrome in a director-approved presentation from its uncut original film elements.

HABIT

Recently single New Yorker Sam (Larry Fessenden) is mourning the loss of his father and navigating a lack of ambition while drowning his sorrows in alcohol. At a Halloween party, he meets Anna (Meredith Snaider), a beautiful and mysterious woman who, it turns out, is also a vampire. The two embark on a sexually fueled relationship that constantly feels on the precipice of boiling over into violence.

Written, directed, edited, and sound edited by Fessenden, who also took on the leading role, HABIT is a singular character study set in New York City in the mid-90s. Trading in canonical vampire lore while imbuing it with something much more frenetic and indicative of the film scene of New York in the 80s and 90s, Fessenden’s film is an exercise in style, shot entirely on 16mm by cinematographer Frankie DeMarco (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), who was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his work on the film alongside Fessenden for Best Director. Vinegar Syndrome proudly presents Larry Fessenden’s brooding tale of urban dread, newly scanned and restored 4K from its 16mm original negatives in a director-approved presentation.