Almost Human

Yeah, it's true: the acting in 'Almost Human' isn't on a par with your standard Hollywood fare. Then again, it's better than most of the 'Star Wars' prequels' performances and you sat through those too, didn't you?

However, this should not deter you from watching the movie. If, like me, your attention was peaked by the 80's throwback poster, you know what you like in this type of movie.

The story, derivative as it is (think Body Snatchers), serves as a vehicle for a slasher-like succession of grisly, well-shot murders. In a sparse visual style, maybe even a little bleak due to the setting, we see the events unfold methodically and with increasing intensity to the suspenseful finale.

In a mere 80 minutes, 'Almost Human' shows what a gifted director can do: very much with very little. You will not be surprised, but you will be entertained.

P.S.: To the guy who kept hearing crickets during the second half of the movie: you might wanna get your ears checked. My copy was entirely cricket-free.

Nothing subtle occurs in this movie. It starts in a rush, resets for the opening credits, and then the killing spree begins (with a little pro forma explanation from Seth along the way). Seth and Jen don't remember what happened the night Mark disappeared, but they know it feels really weird, and now two years later they're feeling weird again. While they're feeling weird, Mark is back and killing everyone he runs across.

The story is quite linear, without an ounce of nuance: Mark disappears, he's back, and Seth and Jen are on a collision course with Mark. There's lots of bloody gunshots, stabbings, and other gruesome action. The action is good, more brutal than scary, though the director certainly wanted a bigger special effects budget to show the violence more explicitly. When Mark attacks Jen, there's a jump-the-shark development where the attack gets especially weird. There's not much character development, the acting is pretty wooden, no grander themes or allegory, no subplots or side characters--just a straightforward story with lots of brutal action. (And one rather comical scene: How long does it take to load a rifle?!) The movie is as entertaining as a car crash, just don't expect any deeper meaning.

This movie was decent and like all movies that have a low budget they try to make up for that with blood. In this case it kinda worked. The story is basically about a guy named mark who gets abducted and comes back a couple years later as a alien.

It's one of the movies that include many type of thing like a combination of the body snatchers and splinter. I admit that the story line wasn't that bad and even though I expected more gore ( even though it's pretty gory) it was an okay movie. Some people would rate it lower them only reason why I didn't rate it lower was because I expected a stupid movie. It's one of those movies that tries every way to be as gory as possible to entertain the viewer. The affects were okay the blood was good the alien tongue that mark has looks really fake but it's okay. And of course many people die and the movie ends like most movie ends with something else that might happen. All and all its an okay movie to watch if you like those type of things that I listed above but it one of those movies that you could laugh while you watch with your friends.

It seems like there exists an extremely strong desire among young and aspiring horror directors to travel back in time to the 1980s. Of all the "new" (2010 – 2017) horror movies I watched, almost half have of them either take place in the 80s or are a throwback in style and/or substance to that same decade. "Almost Human" is yet another example, set in respectively the years 1987 and 1989 and paying tribute to alien invasion and extraterrestrial body snatcher movies of that era. My guess is that these directors are nostalgic about their own youth and the classics that introduced them to the genre, and simultaneously they crave for making less complicated horror flicks in which they don't have to bother with cell phones, social media, internet, etc…

Speaking of young and aspiring horror directors, Joe Bigos is clearly an enthusiast genre fanatic himself and he undoubtedly watched all the classics as well as the obscure hidden gems worth seeking out; I'm sure of that. His film is straightforward and appealing, and he obviously gives priority to serving gore and entertainment rather than ensuring that his screenplay makes sense or doesn't contain any giant plot holes. During a dark October night in Maine in 1987, Mark got sucked into a flashy blue light that came out of the sky and he disappeared right before the eyes of his girlfriend Jen and best friend Seth. Two years later, the two are still flabbergasted about what happened but try to move on with their lives when they suddenly hear the news of a vicious murder spree in the area. Seth immediately suspects that his missing buddy is responsible for the killings, and indeed, Mark has returned! The alienated, brainwashed and – most likely – anally probed Mark axe- murders his way back to his old house, but he stores his victims in the shed where they go through a sort of rebirth process in a cocoon. It's probably best not to contemplate too much about all of the script's shortcomings, stupidities and senseless details… For example, what exactly is this alien race's intention? To cleanse and repopulate the world one person at the time, starting in some random hole up in Maine? What alien race, in fact? We never see any aliens or spaceships, we only see our buddy Mark. And if Mark really has been replaced by an emotionless alien parasite with an earthly mission, then why does he insist on returning to his old house and hook up with his former girlfriend again? Anyway, there are far more questions than the screenplay ever bothers to answer, but the good news is that there's a fair portion of gore and bloodshed to enjoy. The acting performances are so bad they become amusing again. Particularly the people in the supportive roles, like Jen's new lover Clyde, are in desperate need of some basic acting lessons. "Almost Human" is very short – less than 80 minutes – and at least it's never boring, so you won't have the impression that you wasted precious time watching it.

I guess I gotta echo what Gregburnscds has said here, it's a shame a little more time wasn't put into getting decent actors or at least building a story. That said, I'm a huge gorehound and I can see a lot of passion went into this little flick. I really looked forward to each kill and some were pretty damn good. It's strange, because while watching Almost Human I felt many times too it was a comedy. Many of the scenes are hilarious - but I'm not entirely sure that was the intention of the director. The gore scenes were above average, which included a Necrostorm style head squish with a rock, an evil dead style, up the skirt penetrating tentacle, a shotgun blast to the head, and various other impalements etc. I can't say I didn't enjoy the movie, because I did, and I don't think it deserves the one star rating someone has given it. In conclusion, for a low budget horror that only runs about 80mins I thought it was a reasonable effort, and maybe there's better to come from these guys.