DEAD OF WINTER DOUBLE FEATURE; WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER

And we're back! Missing summer yet? Of course you're not! We've had plenty of lake effect snow here in the greater Syracuse area and it's glorious. The perfect weather to keep your ass on the couch with a big ass mug of coffee and watch horror movies while the wind howls and whips and the windows.






For this latest edition, I'm looking at two films by art-horror auteur Larry

Fessenden-writer, director, producer, actor. Fessenden has made and/or appeared in several of the best independently produced horror films we fans have. The purpose of this series, of course, I'm focusing on his films WENDIGO and THE LAST WINTER. Both films were released through Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix and both films are the epitome of great winter chill horror.

In 2001's WENDIGO, a family (mother, father, and son) head to Upstate New York for a weekend in the country, but have an unfortunate run in with some locals that gets out of control and leads to the malevolent Native American legend, the Wendigo, manifesting itself from the imagination of the young son. A slow burn and immersive film, Fessenden does a deep dive into character drama, while the tension builds almost subversively. The third act is dizzying and harrowing.

2007's THE LAST WINTER, starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Blade II), James LeGros (Phantasm II, Drugstore Cowboy), and Connie Britton (American Horror Story), THE LAST WINTER is about an oil company in the frozen expanse of Alaska that accidentally release something ancient and deadly from the long frozen ground. THE LAST WINTER is the scarier and more fast paced of the two films, but also mines a bit of the same mythical territory as WENDIGO. This time though, its the ghosts of ancient earth lashing out against man for his trespasses against nature. It's hard not to make comparisons to THE THING, given the frozen setting and isolation/hopelessness faced by the characters, but the comparisons end there. THE LAST WINTER is very much it's own movie and plays up a more psychological horror that evolves into a supernatural descent into violence and destruction. It's a powerful and jarring film, but also very beautiful. And like in WENDIGO,  Fessenden puts a

heavy emphasis on character development, ignoring the good guy/bad guy conventions of typical story telling, instead giving us flawed and real characters who exist in a more realistic gray area.

Both films take full advantage of their settings with Fessenden ratcheting up the terror and dread in thought provoking stories. I recommend both films, highly. THE LAST WINTER is streaming on Shudder right now, but WENDIGO seems a bit harder to track down outside of the LARRY FESSENDEN COLLECTION box set, which also includes the down beat urban vampire film HABIT.    

JUST A SITE UPDATE, FIENDS

Laying back a bit for the month of November. There will be posts, but fewer than there was in October, as we prepare for our next big series of reviews; DEAD OF WINTER; The Best Winter Themed Horror Films. Right now I've got three guest posts lined up and they are kick ass writers and I'm very happy to have them on board.

DEAD OF WINTER seems like a no-brainer since, ya know, winter is coming, but really Stranger hasn't spent a lot of time in the snow and there are some really good movies I've been itching to write about, but just haven't gotten there yet.

I hope you've been enjoying our filmography series, which will be ongoing. If you've missed it, so far I've covered Rob Zombie and David Cronenberg and guest poster Albert Muller wrote an extensive and fantastic John Carpenter in the 80s piece. I plan to tackle Bill Lustig, Frank Hennenlotter, Abel Ferrera, and Wes Craven in the near future. I see this series as a sister piece to MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MONSTERS. Speaking of...

I had always planned fifty chapters of MHHABM, before I turned the series into a book. Well, Part 50 is right around the corner, but instead of ending the series I believe Part 50 will instead be a chance for a bit of course correction. If you've been with me a while, you'll have noticed (I hope) an improvement in content, presentation, and focus, because admittedly I had an idea about what I was doing, but at times lost focus. The big relaunch in October was meant to signal the first part of this course correction, and Part 50 will catch up and reboot MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MONSTERS and it will start to become more like the book I've always envisioned.

Since the October relaunch the site's numbers have been great! So thank you all for stopping by, I can't tell you how much it means to me to have so many people read my dumb little blog. I mean, lets face it-Stranger With Friction is far from the only horror blog out there and that you take time to pop in and read one of my articles, that's very humbling and awesome! I wish I got some comments though! I'd love to become more interactive with my readers. Let me know what you think, even if you think I'm full of shit.

Ok, I've got to get back to writing. I'm committed to getting my next book, MOTELS ON FIRE, out HERE.
early next year and it ain't writing itself, sweet heart. In the mean time, the first 'single' from MOF is available on Smashwords for you e-readers and a physical copy will be available very soon. The story is called THE LAST MASS and I'm really wearing my love for Fulci and Carpenter on this one. The 'b-side' is called SEEING HER AGAIN and it's a bit more of a down beat, slice of life story. You can get that e-book

Keep watching the sky, nerds!