Interview: THE MIND’S EYE Writer/Director Joe Begos on the Importance of Making Movies He Wants to See & More

With just two features under his directorial belt, writer/director Joe Begos has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting genre filmmakers working on the independent level. His directorial debut, Almost Human, was a stunning sci-fi shocker and his newest project, The Mind’s Eye, is a balls-out telekinetic war that features some insane practical effects and performances from the likes of Graham Skipper (Almost Human, Tales of Halloween), Lauren Ashley Carter (Jug Face, Darling), Noah Segan (Looper, Starry Eyes), Larry Fessenden (We Are Still Here, Late Phases), and Jeremy Gardner (The Battery, Spring).

Daily Dead recently spoke with Begos about his approach to The Mind’s Eye, and the filmmaker discussed what inspired his second feature, the importance of working with the right people and making movies that he wants to see as a genre fan, why he’ll always champion practical effects, and more.

Look for The Mind’s Eye in limited theaters and on VOD platforms everywhere on Friday, August 5th.

Congrats on The Mind’s Eye, Joe. I absolutely adored Almost Human a few years ago and it's so great to see you come back literally throwing everything at us in this movie. I want to start by talking about where the idea for this story came from and how it feels to bring telekinetic horror back into the fold.

Joe Begos: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. When I was doing the festival circuit with Almost Human, everybody was asking me what I was doing next, and I started throwing out the idea of doing the telekinetic revenge splatter-fest because it hadn't been done in a while. It's something that I haven't seen in a long time that I really fucking love, and I thought, “Why aren't people making movies like this anymore?”

I wanted to make that movie. Once I was done with the fest circuit, I sat down and was like, "Well, I've been talking so much about this and now it's on my mind. This has to be my next thing." I just started writing and I wrote that invasion scene as its own thing, and it was going to open up a movie, but that's where I started and generated the idea from. I literally just spider-webbed the whole idea and universe from that home invasion and added the twist of, what would happen if there were telekinetics inside?

There is such a fine line that filmmakers have to walk when you’re making a film that has a retro vibe to it, where you want to pay homage to those films of the past but you have to make sure you don't get tripped up by nostalgia at the same time. Can you discuss having to find that balance, because what you’ve done with The Mind’s Eye feels wholly nostalgic, but also stands on its own two feet as well.

Joe Begos: Yeah, a lot of movies that I see that are love letters to one film or another, they do things that feel like they are almost scripted directly from those movies. For me, I just wanted to take a very grounded approach, and it's like, “All right, when people made these movies that I love, they were dead fucking serious about it.” It wasn't a wink, it wasn't a nod, it wasn't an “oh, we're so cute” moment. It was all about making the most ridiculous fucking story and shooting it like it's a goddamn A-class Oscar picture and everybody's going to take this one fucking serious because that's the movie that we want to make.

Something about that appeals to me because I love movies that are so outrageous and fucking dead serious with their tone. That's how I like to do things, and those movies that are trying to appeal to those older nostalgic things that don’t try and take it seriously just don't appeal to me that much. I prefer to keep it much more grounded and straight-faced and if you're a horror fan, I hope you appreciate that.

Talk about working with your cast, as you have a lot of talented folks assembled in front of the camera for this one. How important was it for you to bring in those people that you trust for this? Because it is such an intimate set, I would suspect that means you have to make sure that people are there for the right reasons.

Joe Begos: Yeah, that's the biggest thing, especially because the movies that I make are like going to war. I ask so much out of everybody. We shot in 40 days and did everything on set practically, so you can imagine how stretched everything was behind the camera. You had to get people who were completely willing to do all that shit. There were days when we were shooing outside, and our only source of heat for anybody was a camper that we bought for $300, and it had only two working heating vents. But once you filled it up with people, it worked out okay [laughs].

But I wanted to get people like Larry Fessenden, who appears in these little movies and he's always so fucking great, so I wanted to give him something that he could really sink his fucking teeth into here. Jeremy Gardner, too; he fucking made his movie [The Battery] for seven grand, so we're from the same world and I knew that I needed him in the movie. With Graham, I wrote the movie from the very beginning for him. For Lauren, I was very nervous about the character of Rachel, because there's so much that is asked of her, but Lauren came in and fucking knocked it out of the park. She is literally the most tiny person I've actually interacted with in my life and the fact that she could pull off all this shit, and be such a force in front of the camera, is so much more impressive, and she's fucking awesome.

Everybody was so good and I just wanted to make sure there were roles for everybody in the movie and I want to make sure I keep on working with them in the future. There's honestly nothing better than a movie with your friends.

You mentioned doing practical effects, which is something that I am a huge fan of, and initially when you think of a telekinesis movie, it’s easy to think that you could cheat a few things with that concept. Instead, you guys go balls-out with some of these effects, which are all amazing.

Joe Begos: Yeah, the thing that I don’t understand is that I was doing this shit in high school. To me, as a high school kid making this stuff with my fucking check from working at Wendy's, why is it that budget movies can’t do more practical effects? It doesn’t make any sense, because I know how much everything costs, so of course that’s the way we had to make this. They were doing it on the cheap 30 years ago, and it looked amazing then, so why wouldn't we want to use practical effects 30 years later, with all the advancements we’ve seen? It's just so crazy to me.

On our tiny movie, we did every single thing that was in the script, and my effects guys did even more than I asked, so I honestly don't think there are any excuses as to why somebody doesn't do it. When I wrote the movie, I knew that we were going to have to take some risks.

One thing was making sure the head blowing up looked great. My effects guys were like, “How are we going to blow up his head?” I was like, “Maniac, Dawn of the Dead, and Scanners all have the best head explosions, that's agreed, right? All three of them did it with a shotgun, so therefore the only way that we can blow up the head is with a fucking shotgun,” and he was like, "What?? We can't do that. I've never done that before."

But Josh [Ethier]’s dad, my producer, has a shotgun and so we built the fucking thing, and he shoved a shotgun behind it, and my effects guys went insane at how awesome it looked when the shotgun went off. It’s all about doing little things like that; it’s so cool to see that stuff being done these days.

Looking back at what you were able to accomplish with Almost Human, what lessons did you take away from that film that you then carried over into making The Mind's Eye?

Joe Begos: The main one was just to always make something that appeals to you the most. Of course, I had been trying to make movies for so long before Almost Human, but finally, I found that idea that was 100% the coolest thing that I could imagine, where it's an alien abduction movie with some cool effects, so let's go and just fucking shoot that. That was literally everything I ever wanted in a movie that I could do with that budget, and people responded to it. That's the most important thing, to not get caught up in what other people want. I'm such a movie fan that, if I can think of an idea that makes me so excited that I want to scream, that's what I want to do.

I've almost done a couple of other movies that I wasn't as excited about, and ultimately, I'm really happy that I didn't. And then, being able to finish this movie and having people respond to The Mind’s Eye in the same way they did for Almost Human—yeah, this movie isn't for everybody, but the true fans of that genre really like it. It makes me so happy that there is an audience for my work, and it just makes me want to only make stuff that I really, really want to make even more in the future.