Biography

Singaporean Chinese writer/director Pearry Reginald Teo established himself with the short film Liberata Me, winning Best Short at the New York International Film Festival, which garnered the attention of U.S. producers. He soon made history as the first from his native country to direct a Hollywood feature film with The Gene Generation (Lionsgate), based on a comic book series with a cult following, starring Bai Ling and Academy Award® winner Faye Dunaway.

Additional directorial credits include the medieval action/fantasy Witchville (Universal) filmed on location in China, Dracula: The Dark Prince (Lionsgate) with Academy Award® winner Jon Voight, the Clive Barker-inspired horror festival hit Necromentia (Image Entertainment), and The Curse of Sleeping Beauty starring Ethan Peck, India Eisley, and Natalie Hall.

Teo served as an Executive Producer on The Wachowski / Tom Tykwer film Cloud Atlas (Warner Bros) starring Oscar® winners Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. He also co-produced George Romero's Day of the Dead with Millennium Films while simultaneously directing Hellboy VR, the Virtual Reality experience for the 2019 movie starring David Harbour and Milla Jovovich.

Teo's films have won several awards including Best Horror Feature for Dead Inside at the Women's International Film Festival, and Best Feature for The Gene Generation at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. Teo's movie The Assent, starring Academy Award Winner Tatum O'Neal, opened to a sold-out show at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, followed by the sold-out US premiere at the Shockfest Film Festival in Las Vegas, where Teo won for Best Director. Teo was hired to write and direct Fast Vengeance (2021), starring DMX in his last movie, and D.Y. Sao.

Teo died on March 9, 2023, in North Hollywood, California, aged 44, of a drug overdose.