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| Ehhhh! Despite having his second film in Midnight Madness, Joe Begos shows no signs of jumping the shark. |
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| "They're not sneering, their faces are just like that!" |
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| Producer Zak Zeman, Graham Skipper, Josh Ethier, and Joe Begos! |
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| Hee hee! Our brains have been turned into pudding. |
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| Evil doctor John Speredakos and Graham Skipper pose with Joe Begos. |
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| LARRY FUCKING FESSENDEN, Josh Ethier, John Speredakos, Joe Begos, and Graham Skipper |
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| Middle school class photo day...IN HELL! |
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| Larry fucking Fessenden, Joe Begos, Producer Peter Phok, and Josh Ethier |
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| LARRY FUCKING FESSENDEN! Also, Joe Begos. |
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| Midnight Madness Prom King and Queen, Graham Skipper and Jordann Skipper |
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| WHY IS MY DINING ROOM TABLE FLYING AT MY FACE??? |
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| A group hug with programmer Colin Geddes before the face-melting The Mind's Eye |
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| With their powers combined, Graham Skipper, Josh Ethier, Joe Begos, and Colin Geddes managed to levitate the Ryerson Theatre 300 feet in the air! |
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| Colin Geddes points out the part of the brain where telekinesis comes from. Spoiler: it's the front part. |
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| Jeremy Gardner hams it up onstage in the Q&A after The Mind's Eye |
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| Joe Begos describes almost dying on the set of his second film. |
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| Fun fact: The '40' in TIFF40 refers to the approximate number of people onstage here. |
I've been acting since a very young age. My father was an actor in LA (where I was actually born) and then in Texas as I was growing up, and my mother was very involved in our local theatres, so both of my parents were very supportive. I did lots of plays and musicals as a kid, including one film when I was 12 that ended up going to Sundance, so you could say acting has been in my blood from the beginning. I went to school for it at Fordham University in NYC, and have been acting professionally ever since!
As with anything, I just try to be as truthful moment to moment on-screen as I can be - and I think that's especially true with horror films. It's so easy to comment on something at outrageous as some of the scenarios you find yourself in with a horror movie, but it's so much more effective to live it honestly and react truthfully to the ridiculousness going on around you. If you're believing what's happening to you, then the audience will, too. I think that was the main thing I kept with me coming out of Almost Human: I had to do my best to ground Seth in what was going on so that the audience would take that ride with me. The same I feel is true for The Mind's Eye - or any role, really. It also should be said that having worked with Joe on Almost Human just helped to solidify our friendship and make working together on The Mind's Eye that much easier. There's a shorthand we developed really quickly on Almost Human, and that just continued on into The Mind's Eye. Plus it just makes it fun!
There was a really weird, hilarious moment on the set of Almost Human that was thankfully captured in the special features on the blu-ray and DVD, that is truly one of those things that only an actor would ever find themselves doing. I had to record some wild lines at the end of a long day out on a cold forest road - it was freezing cold, it was getting dark, we were all exhausted, and they had to get several takes on audio of me yelling various obscenities - "fuck, shit, goddammit" - all the things my mother would have hated hearing me say. And so there I am, screaming these curse words at the top of my lungs, covered in blood, freezing cold, just shouting them into the air while like twenty people just stood around watching me. It wasn't til it was over that we all burst out laughing. Such a weird, surreal moment.
Oh man, there are so many... Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2 is one of the greatest cinematic performances of all time. Same with Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West in Re-Animator. It's not exactly a horror film but Stallone in First Blood is like one of my favorite performances of all time. Also Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani in Possession are two just totally remarkable performances, in what must have been a tremendously difficult film to wrap your head around as an actor. Marilyn Burns in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a testament to commitment as an actor - any time I would ever get tired or sore or whatever, I would think to that performance and remind myself of her and what she went through, and that I needed to suck it up and push through. I really admire the work of some of the old greats - Peter Lorre, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price...there's an elegance mixed with madness that they brought to every role that I think every actor should study. Oh! And who could forget the great Robert Englund! There's so many...!
It just sort of organically evolved from me wanting to do a really violent, badass telekinesis movie. There are really far too few of them. I was itching to do a revenge movie as well, and the two seemed like a match made in heaven, and I built the story from there. Like my last film, I wanted to make something that I would KILL to see.
The casting process was pretty awesome. I wrote the lead for Graham from the start, and then handful of the roles were written for specific people, and the rest of the roles were filled out by me picking up the phone and giving someone a call. I have a love for actors that look supremely blue collar, to me it makes there movie more realistic, so it was important to get actors that are recognizable to the genre, but can also act their asses off and don't look like a cosmopolitan model. I think we hit a pretty good balance, as everyone was able to turn in a phenomenal performance, and to me, look like they could be believable civilians in 1991 New England.
Yeah, there are so many effects in this movie my SPFX guy, Brian Spears wanted to kill me on numerous occasions haha. Not only did we have practical blood and gore, but he had to coordinate with a few other departments as we had tons of wire work, pyrotechnics, squibs, breakaways, you name it. I learned what was possible and how to stretch the budget on almost human even more than I had on any of the shorts I had made in my life. I was determined to take whatever extra money we could get for our budget and put it ALL in front of the camera.
I love when seasons give movies a specific characteristic and atmosphere to the point where the season IS almost a character. I had actually planned to shoot this film in the fall, with all of the beautiful autumn colors, but we weren't able to obtain money fast enough. So therefore the movie was pushed to winter, and we were (un)fortunate to have almost 100 inches of snow during shooting. This was a MAJOR pain in the ass, but man does it look awesome!!
My biggest goal is making sure people have an absolute fucking blast when watching one of our movies
