And he plays another psychologically damaged undercover officer in Infernal Affairs, the film that formed the basis for the Departed. Ironically, his police superior and ally in that film is played by the great Anthony Wong, who played the gangster he’s working against in Hard-Boiled.

My chief complaint was that the suggested origin of the contagion is a bit too similar to Fessenden’s previous work (see below).

However, despite the flaws his films sometimes carry, Fessenden is a really unique director, cut from the mold of George Romero in that his horror films generally carry interesting social and philosophical ideas and a good deal of thought mixed in with the creepy stuff.

His movie Habit is one of the most unique vampire movies ever made and utilizes the same sense of ambiguity that Last Winter starts off with but actually carries it through to the end. It creates an interesting parallel between vampirism and alcoholism.

Wendigo, which shares many connections with Last Winter in its depiction of the relationship between man and nature, also has interesting an interesting subtext regarding masculinity and mortality. A shame it also contains one of the most overused and silly cliches in supernatural films: having a spiritual character, in this case a Native American, sell or offer an important object to the protagonist, only to have that same protagonist turn to find that person has disappeared and was possibly never there.

Fessenden also managed to produce the only truly scary episode of the horror anthology series Fear Itself.

A shame that he’s not more prolific and that his first film ‘No Telling,’ in which he takes on vivisection in the context of the Frankenstein myth, isn’t more readily available.