Probably my favorite indie horror movie since last year’s Resolution, Joe Begos’ alien abduction/slasher mash-up Almost Human arrives today in select theaters and on VOD platforms courtesy of IFC Midnight. To mark the occasion, Daily Dead recently chatted with both Begos and Almost Human star (and poster boy) Josh Ethier about their experiences working together on their 80’s throwback.

Fantastic job on the film, guys. Joe, can you start off by discussing where the idea for the story came from?

Joe Begos: I’ve always enjoyed alien abduction films and I’ve always wanted to shoot in my hometown, so I designed the story around those ideas and the budget that we had to work with.  For the alien abduction story, you always see these movies building towards something monumental in the third act and I wanted to start with that. Make it feel big, but keep it as simple as possible. I wanted there to be slasher elements mixed in there too because you don’t see a lot of sci-fi/slasher movies currently. We’re fans of the 80’s-style of both of those horror subgenres, so we wanted to mix them up together for this.

As a fan, I’ve also been getting really sick of horror movies being shot in Los Angeles. They all have the same feeling and I didn’t want to make a movie that looked like every other horror movie. Because I grew in Maine and Rhode Island- essentially rural New England- and being from a town that looks like it’s right out of a Stephen King story, I thought that the best thing to do was go home and make the movie there. It had everything we needed and everyone was really supportive.

Josh, for your role in Almost Human, you mostly let your actions do the talking which I thought only added to the character. Was it a different approach for you then as an actor to create a character like Mark?

Josh Ethier: Originally on the page, Mark had a lot more to say. On the set, I scaled it back a lot and when we edited the movie, we scaled it back even more. Graham (Skipper) and Vanessa (Leigh) were both so great so that really played that up with their performances. I thought of him like The Terminator in some ways, but in Mark’s case, there’s still this little piece of him inside that still exists- it’s just being controlled now so that’s how I played him.

Graham was always on set too and he’s got a lot more experience than I do, so he was a great help to me, especially in our scenes together.

How does it feel now that you’ve become something of a poster boy for Almost Human- is that surreal? And congrats on badass artwork too, guys.

Joe Begos: Thanks! When you don’t have a huge budget or a hook, you really need great artwork to get people to notice your movie and back when I was a kid, that’s what always drew me in- the art. And ours has really gotten us a lot of attention which is awesome.  It’s really a lost art form.

Josh Ethier: I love being the guy on the poster too- I don’t think I ever would have imagined that I would be the main guy on the artwork, but I think that we were lucky to get something that looks so cool too.

I thought the effects in Almost Human were great. How big of a challenge was it to stay all practical especially when you didn’t have a huge budget to fall back on?

Joe Begos: It wasn’t too bad actually. We didn’t have a huge budget, but we knew going into Almost Human what we were good at and the effects in the movie resemble that. We knew what we could do and what we couldn’t.  We did a lot of meticulous pre-planning with every aspect of this movie because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t have a movie.  We always had a clear idea of how we wanted each gag to go too, so nothing really held us back even though we had such a tight shoot.

Well you guys definitely do pull it off, especially that scene with Josh and Vanessa in the bedroom—

Josh Ethier: Yeah, we knew that scene was going to be one of ‘those’ scenes that people would be talking about. We just didn’t know how they were going to react. It’s hard when you have a moment like that because some could see it as exploitative in nature. We just wanted to create an awesome “Holy Shit” moment because in horror, you should push boundaries.  If people don’t like something in your movie, they should get mad about it. That’s great filmmaking.

Without going into major spoilers, you clearly leave the door open for a sequel. Is that something you have any plans for right now or are you working on other things?

Joe Begos: I do want to do a second one, for sure, but  I don’t think it’ll be the next thing I do. I have this one idea in the back of my mind for a scene that involves the guy who died on the street gets infected with a slug and he wakes up in a morgue, which actually turns out to be the pod base where like 50 pods burst open and infect all these cadavers. Think Halloween II meets Aliens. I definitely want to keep doing sci-fi, that’s for sure.

My dream project that I really want to do next is a telekinetic revenge movie, basically Scanners meets Death Wish. Those are the kinds of movies I really love, so I thought it’d be great to do something like that. I’d love to get to do that project before an Almost Human sequel, although if that happens to work out, I’d be open to doing the sequel next. But I also just started working on an anthology horror movie too so I’ve been focused on that.

  • Heather Wixson
    About the Author - Heather Wixson

    Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.