By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The deal marks a reunion of the distributor and Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix.
Dark Sky Films has announced that it has picked up North American distribution rights to BLACKOUT, written and directed by maverick horror master Larry Fessenden, with a theatrical and digital release scheduled for the first quarter of next year. Dark Sky has previously distributed a number of genre movies from Glass Eye, including Ti West’s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL and THE INNKEEPERS, Jim Mickle’s STAKE LAND, Joe Maggio’s BITTER FEAST and Adrián García Bogliano’s LATE PHASES. The cast of BLACKOUT includes Alex Hurt, Addison Timlin and James Le Gros (from Fessenden’s DEPRAVED), Motell Gyn Foster, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Ella Rae Peck, Rigo Garay, regular Fessenden collaborator John Speredakos, Michael Buscemi, Jeremy Holm (THE RANGER, BROOKLYN 45), Joe Swanberg, Kevin Corrigan and genre veterans Marshall Bell and Barbara Crampton. Makeup effects were created by Brian Spears and Peter Gerner, also longtime members of the Fessenden team.
BLACKOUT completes Fessenden’s triptych of movies inspired by classic monster themes, following his vampire drama HABIT and the FRANKENSTEIN variation DEPRAVED. The synopsis: “Painter Charley [Hurt] wakes up in an upstate motel where he appears to have been living for some time. After he packs and leaves he encounters various people in the small town where everybody knows your name. Charley is saying goodbye to the long-suffering love of his life, Sharon [Timlin], and settling his affairs with a strange urgency that culminates with a call to a friend, Earl [Foster], saying: “You better be ready, I’m coming.” But Charley never makes it to his friend’s house: When the sun goes down, he has convulsions while driving his car, goes off the road and ends up in a ditch. Charley, it seems, is a werewolf. He attacks his rescuers and moves through the outskirts of town at night wreaking havoc. But the next day he can’t remember the things he’s done. Now the tight-knit town must rally to find out what is tearing it apart: mistrust, fear, or a vicious monster.”
“It’s a little bit like coming home, working with MPI/Dark Sky again,” Fessenden says, “especially during this tumultuous time in show biz, when you don’t know who to trust. My goal is to get my movies out to an audience, and I can count on the team at Dark Sky Films to make that happen as they have with all our previous collaborations, large and small. And a shout-out to [sales company] Yellow Veil for their work in putting this deal together. Now let’s roll up our sleeves and get busy.”
Dark Sky’s Greg Newman says, “Larry Fessenden and Glass Eye Pix have had an indelible impact on the indie genre world. Our association with Larry goes back many years, and we are thrilled to once again be working with him in releasing this most recent entry within his truly amazing body of work.” Adds Giles Edwards of Dark Sky parent company MPI, “Larry Fessenden is a gifted filmmaker whose one-of-a-kind vision and style has always set his movies apart. We’re thrilled to bring his remarkable BLACKOUT to the screen.”
