Review - Almost Human (2013 - Dir. Joe Begos)

This year's secret film was Almost Human and supposedly lots of other festivals were after it. Not sure why, really.

Seth and Mark see some bright lights in the sky and Mark gets abducted and anal probed (possibly). A few years later Mark returns and grizzly murders start to occur. As does some cocooning action. (And no, Don Ameche doesn't have a cameo.) 

Billed as a mixture of The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Almost Human is nowhere near as good as either. It's more like a cross between something dull and something excruciatingly dull smothered with the dullest of gravy.

I found it strange that after the first ten seconds, I'd already decided that there was a limit on how high a rating this could achieve (a six, tops). The acting is so bad and amateurish, and yet they take it seriously. Bad acting can be good if it's backed up by comedy, or creative gore (Bad Taste?). This has neither. It hasn't even got anything approaching a good story. It has elements from the two aforementioned films yet they're just a mess here.

It's full of inconsistencies too. At one point Michael snaps someone's neck in a jiffy. A bit later on, when he has a tussle with Seth, he completely forgets this talent. He also has a habit of forgetting his screaming power that has the capacity to incapacitate people. Idiot.

It's not necessarily an irritating film. None of the characters really get on my nerves. It's just that they're all personality bypasses. I don't think it's done them any favours being compared to two classics. The poster doesn't help either, it actually makes it look vaguely exciting. Any kind of fun, tension or horror would have livened this up. As it is this is probably my least favourite film of this year's festival. (Yes, even worse than The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears.) At least I can be thankful that it wasn't as bad as previous terrible entries: Snowtown, V/H/S and Entity (starring that Blake's 7 villain, Derverlar Kirwans).
2/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers obviously.