{
  "title": "TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE",
  "category": "",
  "article": "[Fangoria.com (June 9, 2010—“Sounds Scary: Glass Eye Pix Goes ‘Beyond the Pale’!” by Michael\nGingold]\n“Glass Eye Pix, the New York-area horror factory run by independent filmmaker Larry Fessenden\n(pictured), has been busier than ever these days, with four features in a coproduction deal with Dark Sky\nFilms wrapped and being readied for release, and SATAN HATES YOU, a collaboration with\nMonsterPants, just premiered and about to hit the festival circuit. As if all this big-screen activity wasn’t\nenough, Fango got the scoop that Glass Eye will be terrorizing the audiosphere via an on-line series called\nTALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE.\nFessenden and Glenn McQuaid, writer/director of I SELL THE DEAD, are overseeing this project,\na series of half-hour episodes inspired by the classic radio chillers once recorded by the likes of\nAlfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It was one of the latter programs,\nin fact, that sparked the whole idea. “Glenn and I were driving through a fog-drenched evening\nwith my kid,” Fessenden explains, “and we were playing an old Karloff/Lorre radio show. We\nturned to each other and both said how much we loved it, and how important radio plays were to\nus growing up. Then it dawned on us—we had to do this ourselves.\nSo we called in a lot of our comrades,” he continues, “and then people outside our circle, who haven’t\nmade movies with Glass Eye but are artisans whom Glenn has met on the road.” In addition to Fessenden\nand McQuaid themselves, those from the Glass Eye stable who are taking part include THE HOUSE OF\nTHE DEVIL’s Ti West, Jim Mickle of the upcoming STAKE LAND, SATAN HATES YOU’s James Felix\nMcKenney, Joe Maggio of this year’s BITTER FEAST and sound designer/I CAN SEE YOU director\nGraham Reznick. Among the outside talents involved are PHANTASM mogul Don Coscarelli, THE\nBURROWERS’ J.T. Petty and his novelist wife Sarah Langan, GRACE’s Paul Solet, Douglas Buck of\nCUTTING MOMENTS and the SISTERS remake, SWEATSHOP scripter Ted Geoghegan, MIDNIGHT\nMEAT TRAIN screenwriter Jeff Buhler, short filmmaker Ashley Thorpe and LIBERTY KID’s Ilya\nChaiken.\nMcQuaid believes that harking back to the days when horror was sometimes heard but not seen will\nencourage fresh levels of creativity from all these contributors. “One of the inspirations on this project, for\nme, was that I believe audiences are spoiled these days,” he says. “Filmmakers are struggling to show them\nsomething new, trying to surprise people visually. To pull that rug out from under ourselves as artists, and\nhaving to channel terror in a different way, speaks to all of my influences as a filmmaker. You’ll never be\nable to show the most horrific thing in everyone’s minds, so leave it up to them. When we simmer\neverything down, this is at the core of what we’re doing.”\n“It’s fun to challenge so many of our comrades,” Fessenden adds. “Everybody was rather tickled by the\nidea, and we’ve got such an amazing variety. It’s a format that’s all about the writing, but what Glenn and I\nalso love is that you can do so much with sound effects and music. We really want to create these audio\nenvironments.”\n“That was my initial spark of interest,” McQuaid notes. “You can really isolate the listener. For me, it’s all\nabout selling these pieces in obscure and very diverse locations. For instance, you may be on a trawler with\na troubled crew, or maybe struck out on a desert moon…”\n“The sound of the ocean waves, the sound of the desert wind!” Fessenden interjects. “That’s the whole\nidea: the sounds participating in and creating the environment. It is so much a celebration of the\nimagination. It’s the opposite of CGI; we’re going back to a more spare storytelling experience.”\nGlass Eye’s films have frequently been noted for their chilling aural environments, courtesy of Reznick and\ncomposer Jeff Grace. And Fessenden confirms that both artists will be involved with TALES FROM\nBEYOND THE PALE, revealing, “I just spoke to Jeff today—one of the most overworked and underpaid\nmen in show biz—and he will provide the theme song, which will be tremendously good fun. We’ll\ncertainly encourage each contributor to use a sound or a musician they want; everyone’s welcome to find\ntheir own muse. We’ll always offer Jeff; it’s just up to the director to make the decision. Jeff is such a\nresilient and malleable talent that we feel confident offering him, and Graham will be involved too. We’re\nborrowing these guys from our features, so it’s going to be a delicate balance, but we hope it will all come\ntogether.”\n“What’s inspiring for me,” McQuaid says, “is that I have a lot of ideas, but they’re all insane, and not many\nof them are going to make it to the big screen. So to have an outlet like this for them is fantastic. And who\nknows, if they get through this stage of audio theater, they could bounce on from there to some other form.”\nAdds Fessenden, “I told Glenn we’ll need a rating system, because some of the episodes will be, ahem,\nunsuitable for children.”\nScripts are currently coming in and production begins in August, with some of the cast also set to be\nbrought in from past Glass Eye projects. The duo hope to have the first episodes available for listening by\nHalloween; they’ll be posted at the series’ official website (which opens tomorrow), and will be\ndownloadable via iTunes and Amazon.com. Each installment will have its own accompanying poster\nartwork, painted by Rue Morgue’s Gary Pullin (who also did the title art seen above). In closing, Fessenden\noffers an explanation for the program’s moniker:\n“The pale—which is from the same terminology as ‘impaled’—is an Old English reference to a stake of\nwood. In the old days, when you had your little village, you would put a fence around it, which was a series\nof pales. So anything beyond the fence—or beyond the pale—“\n“Was beyond all perception,” McQuaid says.\n“Most disturbing and unorthodox,” Fessenden adds.\n“Uncanny, even,” McQuaid continues. “Our tales are generally about people who wander outside the pale,\ninto the unknown. They’re inspired by Roald Dahl, Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson…all these\ncontributed to the seed of the idea. But everyone is coming in and adding their own flavor, so it’s very\nexciting.”",
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