Larry Fessenden, the modern Roger Corman of the New York area filmmaking scene, visited our East Coast Weekend of Horrors recently with a bunch of the directors whose flicks he’s backing via his Glass Eye Pix company. Fango spoke to them behind the scenes to get the scoop on a trio of upcoming co-productions between Glass Eye and MPI Media Group; we start with HYPOTHERMIA, a creature feature from James Felix McKenney, the man behind THE OFF SEASON, AUTOMATONS and the upcoming SATAN HATES YOU (which we recently premiered the new trailer for here).
McKenney’s wearing a Creature from the Black Lagoon belt buckle when he visits the convention, and tells us, “HYPOTHERMIA is very much inspired by CREATURE, one of my favorite movies of all time—I’m obsessed with it. People are constantly re-exploring werewolves, vampires, the Frankenstein story—but, you know, the Creature’s the Creature. I really wanted to do a amphibian, humanoid monster story, and I’m like Larry—I love the cold, I love the winter, I love the ice.”
Thus, the movie is set during the cold season, and will be lensed this coming January. “That’s always a gamble, making a winter picture in upstate New York,” Fessenden notes. “I went through that with WENDIGO, dealing with Mother Nature. But my favorite challenge is making those kinds of movies—WENDIGO, LAST WINTER and now HYPOTHERMIA. I can’t get enough of the snowy landscapes. It’s exciting, and we’ll figure it out.”
“We’ll end up shooting in a roller rink somewhere—we don’t need snow, just ice or something that looks like ice,” McKenney laughs. The setting of HYPOTHERMIA is Maine, where McKenney grew up, and he explains, “The storyline centers on two very working-class families with two very different ideologies who come to this lake to ice fish. They encounter this creature, and they deal with it very differently as they get picked off one by one.” Casting is currently underway, and Fessenden says, “We have some very exciting prospects, but it’s rude to even bring them up, because it could lead nowhere.”
“We’re hoping to combine people who have been in my past films with others we haven’t worked with before,” McKenney continues. “And some names—actually, one part is written for a very specific actor I hope we get.” Fessenden adds, “It would be great for the fans and would really give the film that wonderful b-movie vibe, so we’re very hopeful.”
As for HYPOTHERMIA’s other star, the beast lurking beneath the ice, Fessenden reveals it will be created by Canadian FX artist Chris Bridges, with whom he previously collaborated on the SKIN AND BONES episode of FEAR ITSELF. “We had contacted him a year ago, when we had originally hoped to film this picture,” Fessenden reveals. “But time just slipped away from us, so we said, ‘Let’s just take a breather,’ because you really can’t fight Mother Nature’s offerings. On this budget, we need to have real ice and snow; it’s not like we’re gonna create that imagery. But we had already been talking to Chris and we’re very excited to bring him back in.”
“We have a cool monster design,” McKenney says. “I drew an initial concept of what I wanted the creature to look like,” which was then refined by artist Brahm Revel, whose credits include such Glass Eye films as WENDIGO, THE ROOST, THE LAST WINTER and this year’s I SELL THE DEAD. “Everyone’s been very happy with it,” McKenney continues. “It’s reminiscent of what you want a manphibian to look like, but it has another side to it.” Keep checking back at Fangoria.com this week for more on Fessenden’s forthcoming productions.
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