What follows is an edited and condensed version of our interview.
Did you happen to watch it?
Larry Fessenden: I watched the show, which I enjoyed quite well.
BlackoutImage: Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
I love snowy movies.
Jodie [Foster] was awesome.
And actually, I liked her costar [Kali Reis] even more.
Image: Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
So, I liked a lot of it.
And, yes, I was absolutely struck by The Last Winter vibe.
Im not accusing anybody of ripping me off, but its fun to see that vibe.
Image: Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
I really enjoyed that part of it.
Are you involved at all?
What are your hopes for the big-screen adaptation?
Image: Dark Sky Films/Glass Eye Pix
So I will actually be curious to see how traditional they are with the story.
I mean, you could just tell a version of the story and that will be it.
And hopefully the characters are well-drawn and people will enjoy it.
They cant probably get a movie star, so why not get me?
Do you have a preference between the two?
When youre taking an acting role these days, what attracts you to a project or a character?
Fessenden: Well, I dont have an agent or anything.
I sometimes audition, but mostly, it just comes my way.
Its a great way to be on another persons set.
Often I know the director or I want to support someone.
A lot of these are cameos, but I get bigger parts sometimes, and thats really great.
Thats literally a seminal life experience to be on his set.
So, its a great way to be involved in a movie.
I couldnt commit to [acting] as a career, but I do quite a bit of it.
I was an actor when I was young, and thats what I thought I wanted to do.
io9: You founded your production company in the 1980s.
Whats it been like sort of surfing the wave of indie filmmaking in the decades since?
What are the biggest challenges facing an independent filmmaker in 2024 that are unique to these specific times?
So, yeah, [to keep answering your question]: distribution [today] is really tough.
They dont pay for your movie anymore.
You dont get a minimum guarantee.
And streaming doesnt really report the numbers in an accurate or fair way.
The whole thing is really perverse.
And it is because of streaming.
Its the way the industry is built now and theres no respect for little films.
The idea is that youre doing it out of love to make it make bigger films.
Well, what if you just like the aesthetic of the little film?
All of that is just, its literally vanished.
What made you want to frame a classic creature-feature story in that way?
Fessenden: Thats literally just been my entire approach to this genre, which I love.
I grew up on old-fashioned horror movies with werewolves and so on, but I took them very seriously.
I cared about the characters.
And I was engaged with Scorsese and Robert Altman and the movies of the 70s.
I wanted to bring that immediacy and naturalism element into the genre space.
I think that for me, thats how I experience life.
There is sort of always a monster in my life, which is death lurking over me.
Im paranoidI see the world as this intolerably difficult place.
And when you have a monster, that makes it more fun.
io9: Blackout also brings in those environmental themes that were in The Last Winter.
What do you think fascinates you about that intersection between horror and the environment?
It is the stuff of horror.
Were committing suicide on the installment plan, which is a line from one of my movies.
It was a guy saying thats why he smokes, but thats what humanity is doing.
I just take it very personally.
What made you want to focus on a protagonist in that state?
Fessenden: What I do is I have the attack be the thing thats haunting him.
Hes an artist, so hes kind of an outsider.
His community seems to have a problem with his father.
His father never understood his art, so he just feels alienated.
And then hes clearly a drinker, and hes lost his girlfriend.
Somebody whos struggling already …
The way we did the makeup, you might see the actor underneath.
Youre not being fooled into, this is some grandiose mythological creature.
Its really just a dude, with some real serious psychological problems.
Its sort of, he allows this darkness into his life.
Hes painting, then he hears a noise and he steps outside.
He literally steps over the threshold.
But we infuse the meaning.
So I want to capture moments where the mythology creeps into our daily life.
Fessenden: I want to make one more of these monster movies.
Maybe with all of them in it.
I dont know how Ill be able to pull it offfinancing and so on.
But that beyond that, in a way, I just want to get that idea out.
I dont know what the next thing would be.
And I dont know if the world cares.
So I just will see what comes to me and whats possible.
It is unfortunately, a lot about budget and all those things.
I love making movies.
But its also exhausting.
Blackout opens in theaters and on digital/VOD platforms today, April 12.
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