The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 13, 2015

You might think Larry Fessenden would be better known as a director, given the fact that entries in his filmography bear such iconic titles as Jaws, A Face in the Crowd and Chinatown . Of course Steven Spielberg, Elia Kazan and Roman Polanski might prefer to have someone pointing out the fact that Fessenden’s films with those titles are not the “famous” ones, so to speak, so there’s that. Fessenden has carved an interesting niche for himself as an indie horror meister, while also frequently appearing as an actor in not only his own films, but those by such iconic names as Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead) and Neil Jordan (The Brave One). Fessenden might seem like a somewhat odd subject for a “career retrospective” of sorts like the new four disc set from Scream Factory which assembles Fessenden’s films from a fifteen year span (give or take) bridging the 1990s to the 2000s. Fessenden may exploit an unabashedly (and unapologetically) lo-fi ambience in many of his films, but he’s also an (at times at least) unusually intelligent writer of horror. While each of these films has its own hurdles to overcome (as even Fessenden admits in his charmingly self deprecating commentaries), this set also provides an interesting example of an independent filmmaker growing and becoming more and more technically competent as his career progresses. There's at least some thematic consistency in play between these quite disparate films, including a recurrence of the traditional horror staple that Mother Nature doesn't take kindly to humans not respecting her enough.

For reviews of each of the films in this four disc collection, please click on the following review links:

No Telling Blu-ray review

Habit Blu-ray review

Wendigo Blu-ray review

The Last Winter Blu-ray review

The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each release is discussed in the individual reviews linked above.

The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each release is discussed in the individual reviews linked above.

The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplementary material included with each release is discussed in the individual reviews linked above.

Additionally, the set comes in a slipcase which also houses a glossy booklet which includes a career retrospective of Fessenden by Michael Gingold, along with summaries of each of the films in the set and a ton of interesting photos and quotes from Fessenden himself.

The Larry Fessenden Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Larry Fessenden may frankly seem like an odd choice for a "career retrospective" like this one, but these four films taken together prove what an interesting and intelligent filmmaker he has been over the course of quite some time now. The set shows a steady progression of technical mastery, while also proving that Fessenden has some very heartfelt opinions on issues like environmental calamities. Technical merits are generally very good throughout this set, and the supplementary package is outstanding. Recommended.