But Let's Try This Again

[handful_ofdust]

In case you should walk away from this thinking: Man, Gemma's gone soft! She likes ANY sort of crap!, I will point out that I also rented Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter, and found it excellent. Probably the least experimental or overtly "indie" of Fessenden's films thus far, it enlarges on ecological themes found in Wendigo, as well as (in a far more global way) the man-as-addict backbone of Habit. The effects are clean and well-used, the initial character-building pays out, the central reading-the-notebook sequence recalls some of the frenetic montage-work in Pi...we get a genuinely scary reveal or three, expert use of landscape, a hallucinatory climax followed by the bleakest anticlimax I've seen in years. Any fan of Ron Perlman who wants to confirm what he looks like without makeup should absolutely seek this out, along with all those who love good horror generally.

Comments

[glamberson.livejournal.com]

Fear Zone's (mine...) pick as Horror Film of the Year last year, recategorized as Indie Horror Film of the Year after I caught THE MIST. Larry actually talks about this film quite a bit in CHEAP SCARES. Between this film, WENDIGO, and his FEAR ITSELF episode, he's got a mini-trilogy of WENDIGO treatments.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Man, I totally want to read your book now! Not that I didn't before, but I've liked Fessenden for a long time. And I'm kicking myself over missing that Fear Itself ep.

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

reA zombies appeared on my doorstep Saturday.

Fabulous!

(And I lurves Larry Fessenden. I must check this out...)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked it! It was a lot of fun to write, like most Loonie Dreadfuls. Which is why I really have to get back to "Trouble Again"...

As for Fessenden, yes. He's such a glorious freak, both in mind and in body (vide his toothless cameo in Session 9); a smart guy making smart movies about bad, bad choices.

[onemoreshadow.livejournal.com]

I really liked The Last Winter. Great flick.

And I don't think you're soft at all. You're that rare type of fan who can actually talk about liking stuff without coming off like it's a character flaw or something. Most reviewers/critics seem to feel that if they aren't pointing out flaws, then they aren't doing their job. Sometimes it's just nice to hear that a movie was good, minus the snark and sarcasm.