How often do you get the chance to see a film made once of video (in 1982) and then again in film (in 1996)? (Okay, El Mariachi and Desparado don’t count.) A friend lent us a copy of Larry Fessenden’s Habit (the 1996 version) and thereby introduced me to a film and filmmaker of whom I was completely unaware. 
Turns out Fessenden has been a busy man since 1982, directing a handful of horror films and producing several more. In fact, Fessenden is set to script and direct the English language remake of The Orphanage. (An impressive film which, like so many before it, doesn’t need an English remake. Sorry.)
In The Habit, Fessenden plays the lead role, Sam, an artist/restaurant manager in New York who seperates from his long time girlfriend and who meets a mysterious woman, Anna (Meredith Snaider in her only screen credit) after getting wasted at a friend’s party on Halloween night. For the audience, the mysterious woman is – despite her romantic interest in Sam – pretty obviously some sort of a vampire. As the film progresses and things get weirder, Sam becomes more and more aware that he is the victim of something beyond his control. What’s remarkable about an otherwise marginal film, however, is the strong but subtle subtext by which Anna, if she even exists at all, is symbolic not of something supernatural, but Sam’s end-stage battle with alcoholism. To that end, Fessenden’s film takes it’s place in the grand tradition of well-conceived horror films. The acting and production value leave a lot to be desired, even the second time around, but the ideas that drive the film are worthy of anyone’s time, especially those who are drawn to indie or underground horror.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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