Almost Human

Almost Human (2013)

Runtime: 79 minutes

Directed by: Joe Begos

Starring: Graham Skipper, Josh Ethier, Vanessa Leigh, Susan T. Travers

From: Channel 83

Here's a movie I watched on Netflix Instant, which I recently signed up for again for at least the next month. I heard a lot about this movie in the past year or so; a lot of it was the bad kind of publicity, in that the movie sucked, but some do think of it highly so I was interested in checking it out. Yeah, people did compare it to the show of the same title that was on Fox last season before it got canceled and likely helped the publicity of this film.

The plot description from the IMDb: “Mark Fisher disappeared from his home in a brilliant flash of blue light almost two years ago. His friend Seth Hampton was the last to see him alive. Now a string of grisly, violent murders leads Seth to believe that Mark is back, and something evil is inside of him.”

The rest of my review is from what I said about it on Letterboxd.

I've heard about this movie for months and since I recently signed up for Netflix Instant again, I figured it was time to check it out. I imagine many have heard its plot, so I'll just briefly explain that it's about a bearded dude (who happens to look like Joss Whedon) who gets abducted by aliens and returns 2 years later but well... think of what the title of the movie is, and it's that. It's set in the late 80's, although a few times you spot something modern and it did ruin the illusion.

I heard some real mixed reviews about the movie. I know some who really hated it. To me, it's a real 2 star movie. I understand it was a real low-budget affair but there were definitely things that hampered the film. The general idea of the plot was pretty creepy and there were several gory moments. They tried REALLY hard to ape the style of Carpenter, from the opening credits font to the music, the way it was shot to several style elements that were present. It was slavishly done, almost to a fault.

Unfortunately, the story and the characters... that's where it's let down. The idea is cool, but the story and characters, not so much. The acting isn't always so good either. The film is only 70 minutes long before some of the slowest moving end credits you'll ever see, literally done to make it long enough for film festivals. I wish they would have made the movie longer in a more traditional way, in order to add more to the plot and most importantly, provided details that made you care about the characters, as I didn't really care for the characters aside from Seth, who was the lead... and a real annoying A-hole. That was a big problem, as you were supposed to like the dude.

I just didn't care most of the time while watching the movie and that was an issue. Even when things got cool in the last 10 to 15 minutes, overall I can't rate it higher than 2 stars.

I'll return tomorrow night, likely with more than one review.