ICFS presents Trauma or, Monsters All w/ Director Larry Fessenden

“Larry Fessenden remains indie horror’s most singular visionary”
– J Hurtado, Screen Anarchy

“It's heartbreaking by itself, but taken with the three earlier films, it looks very much like a masterpiece”
– Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

The following description comes from the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival catalog:

The upstate New York town of Talbot Falls has been trying to put the horrific events of two years ago behind it, but that trauma is stirred up again by the arrival of an outsider. Cassandra (Laëtitia Hollard, The Pitt) has moved in to work on a book about George Washington Carver, but soon a more immediate subject piques her curiosity. Strange sounds and a scarred man issue forth from the house next door by night, inspiring her to write an article for the local paper speculating about “local monsters.” Turns out, she’s right: Adam (Alex Breaux), a patchwork man created by science, and Charley (Alex Hurt), afflicted with lycanthropy, dwell in that house. When the article goes viral, it attracts the vampiric Sam (Larry Fessenden), assorted other people from the creatures’ pasts, and the enmity of residents who don’t appreciate Talbot Falls’ dark past being dredged up again.

TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL is writer/director/star Fessenden’s long-awaited “monsterverse” movie, bringing together the characters from his previous films HABIT (1995), DEPRAVED (2019), and BLACKOUT (2023). As opposed to past Gothic rogues-gallery chillers like HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, this is, as usual for Fessenden, a film very much of the here and now. The filmmaker uses the collision of his tormented creatures to comment on human dysfunction and the breakdown of modern society, in which one person’s expressed opinion can unintentionally trigger a wave of bad feelings and bad deeds. At the same time, TRAUMA is a treat for Fessenden’s longtime fans, who will get to see his takes on modern horror archetypes come together, along with a troupe of past collaborators including Joshua Leonard, James Le Gros, Barbara Crampton, Addison Timlin, John Speredakos, and many others.

– Michael Gingold, Fantasia International Film Festival

Director Fessenden will introduce the film and engage the audience in a post-screening Q&A moderated by Matthew Kiernan (Programmer, Fantasia International Film Festival).

Not rated. 118 minutes.