IFC Midnight, the darker, sister label to Sundance Selects and IFC Films, has announced it’s acquiring U.S. distro rights to Horror
Icon Larry Fessenden’s esteemed latest directorial effort, Depraved. Fessenden’s modern, Brooklyn-set Frankenstein adaptation is also set to screen for international buyers at Cannes.
Depraved has an impressively varied cast. The Sinner‘s David Call stars alongside Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project, Unsane), The Transfiguration and The Ranger breakout Chloe Levine, and Addison Timlin, star of the fan favorite Town That Dreaded Sundown remake. It’s a moody, atmospheric character piece with plenty to say about the nature of humanity and biological exploration.
Fessenden wrote and produced the movie with his own prolific indie production house Glass Eye Pix, alongside The Ranger helmer Jenn Wexler and Chadd Harbold. Beloved of genre fans, actor, producer, and director Fessenden has made several high-profile appearances over the years in the likes of Stake Land, The House of the Devil, Like Me, The Mind’s Eye, We Are Still Here, and loads more. He also had fun little cameos in The Transfiguration and The Ranger, alongside Depraved star Levine.
Fessenden’s latest directorial effort had its world premiere in March at the IFC Center’s WhatTheFest!? It screens next at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, followed by its international premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in Australia in June.
The horror hero was ecstatic about teaming up with IFC Midnight, enthusing:
I am truly jazzed to partner up again with IFC; they handle my whole canon of films and it feels like home. I look forward to getting this very personal monster movie out to the public in time for the Halloween season. Let’s do this!
I reviewed Depraved around its WTF screening, noting at the time it was Fessenden’s “best directorial effort yet,” with his moody story hinting, “at a greater mythology and a darker world just beyond the edges of society where all kinds of untold horrors likely exist.”
IFC Midnight is planning a Fall release for the movie, while Yellow Veil Pictures will launch international sales at this month’s Marché du Film at Cannes Film Festival, where Depraved will screen on May 19.
