HABIT (1997)

Director: Larry Fessenden

Writer: Larry Fessenden

Producer: Dayton Taylor

Cast: Larry Fessenden, Meredith Snaider, Aaron Beall, Heather Woodbury, Patricia Coleman, Jesse Hartman, Lon Waterford, Rebecca Moore, Michael Buscemi, Helene Weintraub, Kelly Reichardt, Hart Fessenden, Jack Dingas, Alan Bandit, Dale Cameron, Cain Berlinger, Marcos Antonio Miranda, Whitney Alexandra, McGann, Harley Hendrix, John Mondin, Herb Rogers, Becque Olson, Eric Vesbit, Nelson Bakerman, Nancy Arnold, Joanie Iris Arnold, Beth Cote, Alexandra Nordica, Amy Wallid 

Sam (Larry Fessenden) is a New York City restaurant manager whose father (Hart Fessenden) has just passed away. During this difficult time, Sam is also separating from his live-in girlfriend Liza (Heather Woodbury). At a Halloween party hosted by his friends Nick (Aaron Beall) and Rae (Patricia Coleman), Sam meets a mysterious, young woman named Anna (Meredith Snaider). As he becomes increasingly infatuated with Anna, Sam is struggling with his drinking and emotional problems. The deeper Sam becomes involved with Anna the more his physical and mental health seem to suffer. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Habit is a slice-of-life horror film that is best seen without knowing anything about it. If you seek it out, try to avoid reading any blurbs or plot summaries. It is best experienced as its protagonist does. The story is told almost entirely from Sam’s point of view, and its strength is the ambiguity of its menace. We are left to try and decide whether the danger in this scenario is real or Sam’s delusion. The film works so well because either interpretation on the part of the audience is valid. It also shows the way true horror would creep into our lives from our own personal perspective. There is almost nothing that we know from the film that Sam is not personally experiencing. This means we are not ahead of Sam trying to understand the increasingly unsettling events disrupting his mundane world.

Habit is propelled by naturalistic performances from a cast that makes us feel we are eavesdropping on the humble lives of real people. The beauty of this is that the characters are still interesting with their humor, quirks, and conflicts that never seem contrived to deliver plot point payoffs or to make us label anyone the hero or villain. This film does not strive to keep our attention by meeting horror genre expectations. It keeps us engaged by making us believe in the characters. 

Writer-director Larry Fessenden stars as Sam. Having developed this film from an earlier shot-on-video movie he made in his teens, Fessenden knows this character inside and out. Therefore, he gives a very real and unaffected performance as a functional alcoholic that is going through some stressful changes in his life. 

Aaron Beall, as Sam’s best friend Nick, provides a lot of amusing interaction with Sam that establishes their camaraderie and eccentricity. He has some of the funniest lines in the film that occur naturally as the result of his frustration with Sam and other characters. 

Meredith Snaider, as the “mystery girl” Anna, is also eccentric while still behaving in a naturalistic fashion. She immediately infatuates Sam and gets him to discuss himself while sharing no details about her own life. Anna’s sexual aggressiveness keeps Sam distracted and satisfied even as his health and reason seem to be slipping away. 

Heather Woodbury (as Sam’s not completely estranged ex-girlfriend Liza), Patricia Coleman (as Nick’s girlfriend Rae), and Jesse Hartman (as Sam’s musician pal Lenny) all contribute fine dramatic support. Most of Sam’s friends seem to be hipsters in their mid-twenties to their early thirties. They are people still trying to find their way in life as they cling to some ideals while dealing with disappointments. 

There is great craft shown in the depiction of the very real world of this strange story. Most of the time, there is nothing threatening happening, but there is constantly interesting imagery throughout Habit. Many of the shots focus briefly on small details of a setting or background characters that make the world this story takes place in very intimate and real to the viewer. Writer-director Larry Fessenden excels at making the mundane seem visceral and almost exotic at times. He also uses overlapping and recurring dialogue and images that present a stream of consciousness impression of Sam’s thoughts and fears. Few films demonstrate as effectively as Habit does the importance of talent and narrative discipline in creating cinema that involves rather than pacifies an audience.

Habit is an all-time favorite of mine. It was my introduction to Larry Fessenden and immediately made me a diehard fan. Fessenden explores horror through a personal point of view with style that is both down-to-earth and delirious. He has gone on to direct and produce many more horror-related projects for his Glass Eye Pix company. Larry Fessenden is the Val Lewton of our time.