FANTASIA 30 (2026)—LARRY FESSENDEN’S “MONSTERVERSE” QUADRILOGY

The International Premiere of Larry Fessenden's final chapter of his “monsterverse” quadrilogy Trauma Or, Monsters All (2026) brings together the vampire Sam (Fessenden) from Habit (1995), Frankenstein of the Hudson, Adam (Alex Breaux) from Depraved (2019), and the wolf man of Talbot Falls, Charley (Alex Hurt) from Blackout (2023). The quadrilogy works as a standalone or series finale and—as stated in Fantasia’s program capsule—explores “themes of dysfunction, social strife, and the filmmaker’s unmistakable flair for human drama.” 

Dispatching from New Orleans’ Overlook Film Festival, Richard Newby of The Hollywood Reporter characterizes Trauma Or, Monsters All as “a monster mash nearly 30 years in the making.” Newby adds that Fessenden’s film “challenges the very notion of a monster as it relates to modern America. Race, sexuality, history, and the environment all play a crucial role in what stories are told and how they’re told. The film suggests we’ve become distracted by false enemies while the real monsters reside right in front of us, and in the highest seats of power in the country. … Trauma has shaped who we are as people and as a country, but in order to move forward, and truly change things, we’re going to have to let some of that go to heal and unite as a force that’s smarter and better equipped than the true monsters.”  

PVD Horror interviewed Fessenden before the world premiere screening of Trauma Or, Monsters All at Overlook.

  

J. Hurtado synopsizes the plot for Screen Anarchy, which is in gist about a writer investigating her town's dark past for a newspaper article and how it stirs up fears about lurking monsters. Hurtado contextualizes: “Fessenden’s horror stories have always taken an askew glance at the genre, reading into the subtext of the classics to hew closer to the spirit of the stories and the way they’ve always commented on the human condition. Trauma, Or Monsters All is no different, only this time it’s not only the things that go bump in the night that get put under the microscope, it’s also those who would hunt them down. 

“The collective trauma in Talbot Falls erupts after Cassandra’s article riles up the town and, as the title says, makes monsters of everyone. While the town around her disintegrates into a swirling mass of paranoia and persecution, our old friends Adam (Alex Breaux’s creature from Depraved), Charley (Alex Hurt’s werewolf from Blackout), and Sam (Fessenden’s forlorn vamp from Habit), are monsters left seeking the most human thing of all, connection.” 

At Father Son Holy Gore C.H. Newell echoes that sentiment: “Not every horror filmmaker or writer understands the complexity of monstrosity, even if they make monster movies, but Fessenden—similar to someone like Guillermo del Toro—understands monsters; not only what makes them scary, but also what makes them deeply human.” 

Although Fessenden asserts that the quadrilogy works as a standalone or series finale, I’ve watched the first three films to more fully appreciate the winks and nods that I’m anticipating in Trauma, Or Monsters All; presaged in the final scene of Blackout when Charley passes Adam on the street with an intrigued over-the-shoulder glance. 

Walter Chaw writes at Filmfreak Central: “Comprising a loose trilogy of riffs on Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, respectively, Fessenden’s Habit, Depraved, and Blackout understand the Universal Monsters pantheon as metaphors renewed for the generation that resurrects them and as modern archetypes that seem always to speak more eloquently in shorthand than in complete sentences. The vampire movie as a parable for addiction? Sure–but in Fessenden’s hands, the addiction is to destructive behaviors in toxic interpersonal relationships that erode self-esteem and social guardrails.” 

Larry Fessenden appears to be a patient filmmaker loyal to his ideas. In 1980-1981 when he was a 17–18-year-old student, Fessenden made an initial short-film / video version of Habit. In 1994, 13 years later, he revisited Habit, which had a theatrical release 3 years later in 1997 when he was 34. 1997 was a good year for Fessenden. He won the 1997 Independent Spirit "Someone to Watch" Award and Habit garnered favorable reviews during its festival run before opening theatrically. 

He wrote, directed and starred in Habit as Sam, a young man seeking relief at the bottom of a bottle as a way of dealing with the recent death of his father and the loss of a girlfriend due to his alcoholism. He meets androgynous beauty Anna (Meredith Snaider) at a Halloween party and adds reckless unprotected sex (during the AIDS pandemic) to his poor choices, which literally come back to bite him. His poor choices reveal—as they often do—his low self-esteem. The "habit" indicated in the film's title references a self-loathing that compels Sam towards self-destruction. It's as if he can't help himself. AIDS is never directly mentioned but infection through blood is. The monstrous consequence of otherwise hot sex makes Habit a cautionary tale appropriate to the time of its release. Sexual addiction is underscored as the cause of infected consequences and is laminated onto a vampiric trope. It’s never ascertained if Anna is a true vampire though she does suck blood from wounds she inflicts, never appears in daylight, and never seems to eat anything except anyone who keeps her from Sam. Is Sam a victim or a fool for not being able to face reality, control himself and constrain Anna? Sam’s deterioration is a sad thing to witness and proof that loss and loneliness can drive a man insane. It will be interesting to see how Sam will be resurrected to appear in Trauma, Or Monsters All since—unless I’m missing something—I thought he plummeted to his death at the end of Habit. Perhaps Anna was a vampire after all and her bite a get-out-of-death-free card? Habit is available for streaming on Shudder.

  

Twenty-two years later Fessenden continued his homage to Universal with Depraved (2019), his take on the Frankenstein tale. The failure of fatherhood haunts Depraved, beginning with a quarrel between Alex (Owen Campbell) and girlfriend Lucy (Chloë Levine) where she tries to compliment him by saying he would make a good father and he responds by feeling pressured that she wants to have kids too soon after his moving in with her. Shortly thereafter Alex is murdered and his brain lifted and placed into a cadaver stitched together by Henry (David Call), a disillusioned field surgeon suffering from PTSD. Henry, in effect, is both creator and father of Adam (Alex Breaux), named after a soldier on the battlefield who died in Henry’s arms and not God’s firstborn. 

Tomes have been written about the relationship of fatherhood to Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818), most notably Walker Larson’s “Frankenstein and the Responsibility of Fathers” (2024), Harshita Yepuri’s “Blame My Insanity on My Father, the Importance of a Paternal Bond in Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein” (2021), and Laura P. Claridge’s “Parent-Child Tensions in Frankenstein: The Search for Communion” (1985), to name a few. In gist, fatherhood in Depraved acts as a central moral framework, primarily explored through Henry’s catastrophic failure as a paternal figure. By not accounting for Adam’s need for a normal life, which he openly admits late in the film, Henry has neglected his parental duty, failing to provide nurture, and thereby initiating monstrous suffering and tragedy. Adam’s violent turn is explicitly driven by his desperate, unfulfilled longing for parental acceptance and guidance. Fessenden astutely perceives the depravity of the guidance offered Adam, first by his creator / father Henry, and then by Henry’s financial donor Polidori (Joshua Leonard) who takes Adam out on a disastrous night on the town, exposing him to the darkest and most perverse cravings of human nature. As Shelley, Addison Timlin delivers a heartfelt portrait as the victim of Adam’s awakened desires. Depraved is likewise available for streaming on Shudder.

  

Finally, in 2023 Fessenden crafted Blackout with Alex Hurt as Charley Barrett and Addison Timlin returning as his ex-girlfriend Sharon Hammond. Monstrous suffering is once again applicable to the fate of Charley who comes to in fields and forests during the three days of the full moon covered in blood. He knows he is a werewolf and that he is killing innocent people and it is driving him mad with guilt. Further, he has deep concerns that he will go after Sharon, who he loves.  

Blackout is strengthened by the theme of racial animosity as Sharon’s father Jack Hammond (Marshall Bell) strives to blame the murders in Talbot Falls on the local Mexican American community. Comparable to Depraved, greed is a trigger for the monstrous to retaliate. Blackout is available for streaming at Prime.

  

As each “monster” in Fessenden’s “monsterverse” are genuinely sympathetic characters who suffer for their monstrosity, I’m eager to see the three interact in their narrative reunion in Trauma Or, Monsters All, whose title implicates that we each must recognize the monstrous within ourselves, whether addiction, or the rage of abandonment, or ravenous instincts beyond control, or mob mentality. 

I’m reminded of one of my favorite conversations at Fantasia during their 2011 edition when I sat down with Montreal’s Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare to talk about genre films. He gave this nugget, which has been gold for me for years: “The word ‘monster’ comes from the Latin word monstrare, meaning ‘to show’, and is cognate with the English word demonstrate, meaning ‘to show clearly.’ So monsters are not just evil creatures; they show, reveal and point to something. But what are they pointing to?”