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| Blackout |
Talk about werewolf films and most people expect a lot of spurting blood, growling and gnashing of teeth in a horror tale which they’re unlikely to take seriously. Larry Fessenden’s latest work, Blackout, is a very different beast. It follows a troubled artist (played by Alex Hurt) as he returns to the little town of Talbot Falls after many years away, hoping to make things right with the community and, in particular, with his ex. haunted by what he believes to be happening on moonlit nights which he can barely remember, Charlie is contemplating drastic action. It’s a thoughtful, introspective tale with a lot to say about society at large.
As a longstanding admirer of Larry’s work both behind and in front of the camera, I was delighted to get to meet him as he prepared for the film to screen at Fantasia 2023. i began our conversation by asking him if I was correct in thinking that /blackout is based on the story of the same name which he wrote for the podcast Tales From Beyond The Pale.
“Yeah. It's one of my least favourite Tales.” He laughs. “But I've always wanted to make a werewolf movie. And that was a nice beginning, because those are usually half hour performances, so I just used a seminal scene that remains in the new film. It was a good way to test the waters. A lot of the dialogue is the same from that script.”
People are describing Blackout as part of a triptych with vampire film Habit and Frankenstein’s monster film Depraved. Is that how he sees it?
“No,” he says flatly. “In fact, I'll tell you a secret. I've often paired up my movies. I used to say that my first movies were a trilogy of horror. That was No Telling, Habit and Wendigo. It was fair because I think my movies are sort of connected thematically, so that makes some sense. But it's also a way, when you're an independent filmmaker, to try to get some attention and show there's a deliberateness to the work. But quite obviously, Habit, Depraved and now Blackout do constitute a reimagining of the classic Universal Monsters, so I grant you this is truly a trilogy of sorts.”
With a werewolf film, I suggest, one is always telling two stories at once. There’s the experience of the wolf and the experience of the man. Usually cinema tends to focus more on the wolf, because it's so external, one can scare and excite an audience with that really easily. But this seems much more focused on the man, and that, to me, is the more interesting part of the story.
“I really appreciate that,” he says. “When I make a horror film, I usually say what would it really be like? In Habit, what would it really be like to meet a vampire? To confront, that to feel like you were having your blood drained by your lover? And yet, you know, it’s impossible, so can't be true. So then you assume you're crazy. If you wake up in the laboratory, and you don't know where you are, that's what it would be like to be Frankenstein's monster. You’d be so disoriented. And of course the werewolf doesn't really remember the beast part of his life, but he pieces it together with clues in the newspaper clippings. And so that would be an enormous existential drama. You know, do I feel guilty for something I didn't do? But did I do it? Is that really who I am? You enter the picture in a way. And it's also about, is suicide ever a good idea, you know, if you really are causing terrible damage? And these are all just things that interests me, they're the existential drama that is suggested by the more fantastical nature of each creature.”
At the same time, there are aspects of it that don't seem so fantastical. People do wake up and not know what they've done, including in situations where they’ve been violent. There's something there that feels very human and ordinary in a way.
He nods. “Well, without getting too much into spoiler territory, there's a so-called home invasion sequence that's really just a domestic violence scene. And in a way, that's what I like about monsters, is that it's clearly a metaphor. Everybody who's watching presumes that it's not true that we have werewolves, but in fact, it sort of asks the question, ‘Where are the werewolves in our lives?’ You know – what is that quality that, in this case, this character has? And how do we recognise it in the messy business of society? So that's also what I'm interested in.”
There's also a moment in the film where someone says that if there were a serial killer, that will be really horrible. It's not really so different in terms of the effect it has on everybody, but somehow it's easier to accept a werewolf, perhaps because it seems more different from ourselves.
“I love that point. Because in a way, what I do with these monster movies is I say, ‘Don't you wish we had these?’ It would be an excuse, you know? In the end, my films are saying it's us who created these situations, and we're the monster. And we have put our house in order. So I do have a little bit of a scolding nature.” He laughs. “It’s because I’m discouraged by humanity, you know? We've let ourselves down And the other thing is these are stories often with alcoholism being explored, and addictions. We're bringing these problems onto ourselves. And I take that further with things like climate change. Why is humanity so hell bent on self destruction? Of course, that's a fun thing to discuss in a horror movie because you have the comfort of the construct. I don’t want to want to make dreary, modern dramas about how terrible we are because other people do that well and it doesn’t interest me. I like a little bit of fun on the side. A full moon and an old creeping tree.”
I point out that the werewolf is often used in fiction to represent nature.
“Yes, I do agree. And you know, I have my character being a painter. I feel like an artist is in touch with something more primaeval and therefore, maybe an artist is the type of society member that would be a werewolf. He or she might be more open to that atavistic life. I'm always talking about our role in nature. And of course, when I was little, I wanted to be a werewolf, because you would get to be free, and some of my favourite images in my little film are just the monster running. There’s kind of a freedom to his drama as well. Unfortunately, then he runs into people and it doesn't go well.”
I like the fact that the film is quite minimal in what it shows us of the werewolf, but we see his clawed hand early on, and then there's an iconic image where he's feeding on somebody. Were those images there to reference the classic movies or to stand in for showing us more?
“Yes. Look, I love the old movies, although most great horror films are quite coy and there's really just a few images that you carry with you. And when I was little, you know, there wasn't video on all these things, we couldn't own the film, so all we would have is maybe a still. And so there's a couple of iconic images of Frankenstein or Wolfman and Dracula, and those are really what you carry around. And then you say, ‘Oh, I love that movie, ‘ but you don't necessarily know the movie that well. You know the imagery. It's a matter of sparseness having a real appeal.”
We talk about the way that scraps of werewolf lore are woven into the film.
“The irony is even the full moon is a construct,” he observes. “In the 1935 Henry Hull movie [Werewolf Of London] he just takes a potion. The idea of the full moon is a construct from the Universal movies. But yes, to answer your question, I feel like all those movies are in my DNA. It's like a Greek myth, there's a certain pattern that they follow. And I don't mind being extremely traditional, because I hope that I'm bringing other textures in some of our modern concerns, divided towns and small town America and, as you say, environmental concerns. So you want to be grounded in those classic tropes.
“Love is an important aspect of his despair and loneliness. The relationship to his father is another cliché from the 1941 movie [The Wolf Man], but it's been carried over. I'm very obsessed with the patriarchy because I think it's why we're in such a mess. On the one hand, you know, there are the old white guys that ruined the world, but it's also where we got so many of our principles and even the notion of a good society. So I'm interested in the role of the father in society, but also in an individual. So I'm always dealing with that issue as well.”
I was interested in how the small community works in the film because it feels very much like it's been built up as a whole community rather than a succession of individual characters. Whilst there are obviously problems, there's a sense of closeness in the community and maybe some tenderness and positivity to that as well.
“Yeah, I appreciate that. I don't know. It's probably a little quaint, but actually, I live upstate much of my time, and everybody does know each other and some of the names on the streets are people that you know, and you realise that family has been there for decades and decades – generations, I should say. And so there is that sense, but then there's the town drunk, and then there's the person who became an artist, and we don't really talk about them. I really love showing those exchanges. And in a way, it shows that even people with different political views, when they know each other, there's still an ability to communicate.
“My main character, the werewolf guy, he's clearly an artist, and they are all teasing him a little bit, but he's the son of a town patriarch so, you know, whatever. Those dynamics, I think. exist in small towns and big towns in the nation. And we have our characters. That's the way humans build their communities. We have characters in the news and we hate them, or we love them and all this kind of thing.”
Of course, once the killings begin, the community finds an outsider – not the protagonist – to blame for it, and behave in a way which feels almost like something out of folk horror.
“Absolutely. I guess all monster tropes have that, but there's something about the werewolf movie that often belongs in a small town. I mean, of course, it's exciting when it's in a city. I guess American Werewolf In London has the subway scene. But yeah, I don't know, I just think this movie wanted to be about a community. I make films in New York as well, and then you're dealing with the anonymity. And of course, there's lots of potential for monsters wandering the streets of New York, because there's just so many strange characters. This one wanted to be in a rural environment, I think.”
So how does one cast that kind of thing so that everybody connects in the right way, and everyone's on the same page?
“I love to say that this movie is really a study in acting techniques, because I brought on many different friends and associates and a couple of newcomers from auditions. I used the wonderful casting agent Lois Drabkin, but a lot of them were previous collaborators and, you know, you have a character and you kind of imagine ‘Oh, that would be great if that was James Le Gros. It's a classic role for him.’ But as I say, what's fun is that there's some people who seem to be more methody, some of the actors have a more presentational way of acting. So by chance, because there's so many characters, everybody is very briefly in the film. I think it makes it fun, like an anthology film almost. But then again, that's because of the nature of the monster. When you have just three nights of the full moon, you really have to get a lot going on. And then the rest of the werewolf’s time is hanging out in a hotel. So it's a weird monster, I actually found it much harder than a Frankenstein story.”
I tell him that I love Barbara Crampton in her supporting role, because there are not obviously enough roles for women her age anyway, but to be that age and provide temptation in the film, flirting with the younger protagonist, is quite something.
“I love Barbara, she's so cool. She's very hot, never mind her age. But she's often dolled up and I just said ‘No, Barbara, you're coming and having breakfast and this guy comes over and you've been sort of bugging him. And there's a flirtation, just as I think maybe a single woman would have with, you know, the help. I mean, he's coming to paint the shed. And then that expression in the story becomes kind of loaded. You know, ‘Oh, you're going to paint my shed,’ and all this. It's basically silly, but I think it's the way we communicate, in metaphors. And there's a little flirtation. I am very fond of that scene. That was the first thing we shot actually.
“We see that moment with her and we think ‘Oh, he's just a typical dude, butterflying around. But actually then the next thing is he visits his ex and you realise he’s really so troubled.”
We see more of his troubles in the art he creates. Where did those paintings actually come from?
“Very strangely, a year prior to making the film, I got an email from a painter saying ‘Would you come in? Can I do a portrait?’ and I found him to be a very interesting character. He’s in Brooklyn, his name is John Mitchell, and he loves to paint from life and he loves to have these experiences. And he loves my movies, which is why he asked me to pose for him. So I just found it all very interesting. I was moving into the direction of having my character be a painter, maybe because my son had been painting vigorously at school, and also what I said about the arts versus werewolves and all that. So I asked John if he wanted to do the paintings for the movie he and he produce many, many paintings.
“I had the conceit that the artist started as a natural painter, he was just painting the trees and really responding to nature and listening and observing. But then as he became a werewolf, he became much more psychological and much more internal, and they became much more violent, the paintings, and also more self portraits, and then distorted self portraits. And to me, it's the history of humanity. At first we were in awe of nature, we believed in God, we painted hills, and then in the 20th Century we started getting into abstractions, and we became more self involved.
“I believe narcissism is the great cancer of humanity, just obsession with self and obviously all our machines now are just about ourselves. So I'm always – you say two stories, I'm actually trying to tell many, many stories, and one of them is simply the degradation of the art into, you know, maybe it's a good thing – more expressive. So by the end, he's just battling the canvas, because he's just become completely id. So those those were thoughts, but John Michell was my painter and a very loyal collaborator for at least a year, two years.”
So what’s next for Larry as a director?
“Well, I'm going to say this because it's just, I don't know, I don't have a lot of time left. I don't know who will finance my next picture. But I want to make a mash-up of all the monsters. And I'm working on that now.” He smiles. “Then I’ll make a real movie. I always says that. ‘Then I’ll make a real movie.’”
That sounds like something that would go down well at Fantasia, I say.
“Oh, I'd like to think so because, you know, it's just silly enough that my challenge will be to make it actually torque into something remarkable. So I think it'll have a different tone than this. This movie is very melancholy, and maybe I'll make something more shocking. That will be fun.”
