IFC Midnight has acquired Larry Fessenden’s DEPRAVED, his modern Brooklyn-set Frankenstein adaptation starring David Call (The Sinner), Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project), Alex Breaux (Bushwick), Ana Kayne (Another Earth), Chloë Levine (The Transfiguration, The Ranger), and Addison Timlin (The Town That Dreaded Sundown), for release in the U.S.
The film world premiered in March at the IFC Center’s WhatTheFest?! and can next be seen at The Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, and then will make its international premiere at Sydney Film Festival next month. IFC Midnight is planning a Fall release.
Alex (Owen Campbell) leaves his girlfriend Lucy (Chloë Levine) after an emotional night, walking the streets alone to get home. From out of nowhere, he is stabbed in a frenzied attack, with the life draining out of him. He awakes to find he is the brain in a body he does not recognize. This creature, Adam (Alex Breaux), has been brought into consciousness by Henry (David Call), a brilliant field surgeon suffering from PTSD after two tours in the Mideast, and his accomplice Polidori (Joshua Leonard), a predator determined to cash in on the experiment that brought Adam to life. Henry is increasingly consumed with remorse over what he’s done and when Adam finally discovers a video documenting his own origin, he goes on a rampage that reverberates through the group and tragedy befalls them all.
Fessenden, who heads the celebrated indie horror production house Glass Eye Pix, wrote the film and produced alongside Jenn Wexler and Chadd Harbold. Joe Swanberg, Edwin Linker, and Peter Gilbert served as executive producers for Forager Film Company and Andrew Mer was co-executive producer. No stranger to genre fans, Larry Fessenden has been a producer and actor on many break-out genre films from the past decade that have premiered at SXSW, Tribeca, Fantastic Fest and Sundance, and DEPRAVED marks his bold return to the director’s seat.
“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!” said Fessenden.