The Horror Show
Almost Human
by Joe Begos
I’ve been crossing my fingers for years and hoping I would be graced with an amazing alien abduction film. I assert that there hasn’t been a good one since Fire in the Sky. That movie traumatized me as a child and gave me the fear of being abducted by aliens. Sadly, every single time a new alien abduction movie comes out I’m always disappointed. Absence, The Fourth Kind, and the segment Slumber Party Alien Abduction from V/H/S/2 were all disappointments. I sincerely hoped that Almost Human would be the answer I’ve been longing for.
Seth and Rob were on their way to visit their friend Mark and things didn’t go quite right. Aliens abducted Rob. Seth arrives, in a panic, at his friend’s home. Mark doesn’t really believe Seth’s story and insists they try to look for Rob. He’s cut short when the lights dim, an ear piercing noise echoes, and a blue light shines from outside. The commotion wakens Mark’s girlfriend Jen. The ear shattering noise subdues all three. In the midst of the chaos, Mark cracks. He calmly walks outside seemingly immune to the effects of the noise. He’s lit by a blue light and disappears into the sky. Seth and Jen lose all memory of the events from the night. Confused, Jen accuses Seth of Mark’s disappearance. Seth’s then arrested but is let go due to a lack of evidence. Two years later, Mark returns different from the alien experiments. He is able to turn humans into human-alien hybrids with a parasite that he inserts via the mouth. The only thing on his mind is sharing his gift with Jen. Seth feels like something wrong is going on and may be the only one who can stop the returned Mark.
This movie was quite misleading; I definitely thought this would be more of an alien abduction movie. It’s more comparable to a survival horror film. An alien-man thing is hunting down people and turning them into alien-man things as well. The whole alien thing is incidental; it could have easily been a killer animal, a zombie, or a serial killer. I felt the exact same way when I was watching Storage 24. Alien horror is more psychological. The horror doesn’t come from being chased down and killed. It comes from the fear of being abducted, exposed to horrendous experiments, left with only vague memories of the event, and being called crazy when no one believes your story. Listening to the stories of alien abductees are a thousand times more terrifying than Almost Human.
I think the movie fell flat because the director, Joe Begos, is inexperienced. This was his first feature film after all. My main criticism lies in the pacing, it was fairly slow. It wasn’t a suspense building slow pace but rather a boring slow pace, I fell asleep the first time I attempted to watch this movie. A majority of the plot focuses Jen and Seth talking about how they have a bad feeling that something is going to happen. Mark goes around occasionally killing and infecting strangers but there is no conflict between the main characters until the last 20 minutes of the film. More big problems were in the consistency and clarity. I don’t think there are any plot spoilers here, so I’m just going to keep going. Several infected were killed in the movie by either throat slit, axe to the head, stabbed, etc. Each one of those remained dead when killed. Mark, when “killed” by a shotgun decapitation, doesn’t stay dead. He’s able to still move around. These other alien hybrids go down and stay down, then why does Mark still get to live? I’ll tell you why, plot device. They needed to lull the main characters into a false sense of security and then strike again. On the other hand it’s inconsistent. It just doesn’t make sense! They either all go down easily or they all are still alive. Pick one and stick to it! Otherwise, your viewers will start to question the movie. If I’m questioning things, as they happen, I’m not totally dedicated to the whole movie watching experience.
Also, what are the aliens’ goals? Why are they infecting people? Are they trying to take over the earth? They clearly aren’t trying to infiltrate human society because they kill every other human they meet immediately. Why are they abducting people and sending them back infected? Let’s say they are trying to take over the planet, why are they doing it? Is it for the resources or are they just jerks? The real reason alien abductions freak me out is because the motives are simple. They’re this force out in space greater than mankind and they abduct us with no other motive than to study us. How much better of a movie would that be? I mean it really makes people feel insignificant and powerless, that’s terrifying.
It wasn’t a total failure and I feel like for a moment Begos found his niche in this movie before losing it again. Mark finally confronts Jen with intentions of infecting her. He proceeds to throw her on the bed and I was expecting his mouth tube to attach to her face, at this point, but it didn’t happen. He proceeded to take off her pants and I thought, “He doesn’t need to be doing that.” I half expected him to rape her then but the movie didn’t take that road either. His mouth tube then latched on to her crotch and things got weird. It was comical and horrifying at the same time. I think Begos’ strength may lay in shock or comedy horror. That single scene almost made the entire movie worth watching. That particular moment was interesting and took the movie in a direction I haven’t seen before. Hopefully as Joe Begos gains experience, his films will get better. I definitely see potential in his work but Almost Human wasn’t quite there. If he releases a shock film or a horror comedy I’ll be all over that. I guess I’ll be keeping an eye out for Begos in the future.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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