Interview with Uriah Shelton and Drew Scheid, Stars Of ‘Unhuman’

With today’s oversaturation of zombie flicks, finding one that is even just a little bit different than the last one is always a breath of fresh air. That’s what I found with Unhuman, that latest horror film from Blumhouse and Epix. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019 – our review) filmmakers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton’s newest film is a black comedy full of blood, guts, and gore, mixes laughs with the violence, which makes the film both entertaining and pretty ruthless. To celebrate the release of Unhuman, I chatted with stars Uriah Shelton and Drew Scheid via Zoom, and we talked about what intrigued them about the project, their favorite scenes to shoot, why they love horror, and more!

PopHorror: I really loved Unhuman. It was so much fun.

Drew Scheid: Thank you!

PopHorror: What intrigued you about the film and made you want to be a part of it?

Uriah Shelton: Well, from my perspective, I have always wanted to have a part in a zombie movie. I loved zombie movies growing up. I was obsessed with them. I love the whole, “OMG, what would I do if it happened?” Initially, that’s what drew me to it. Then the opportunity to play a character who is just messed up, like a messed up guy. You know, arrogant, selfish, kind of cold-hearted. Just brutal. It wasn’t an opportunity that I’d gotten to explore in the past, and the more it developed, the more it held me, because during the rewrites, we got really humanized the characters. We got to see more of why they are the way they are. Marcus [writer/director Dunstan] did a great job of giving us a historical backstory and made it interesting the whole way through.

Drew Scheid: Same thing. When I first got the audition, I was like, “What? A zombie movie? Yeah, I’m there! That sounds incredible!” Then I read it and was like, “Oh, this is great!” And then, I finally got the script that Marcus and Patrick [Melton] wrote, and I was just engrossed reading it. It was great. I was on the edge of my seat reading it, and then—not to spoil—but then the thing happens, and then… I was on a plane the first time I read it, and when the thing happens, I was like, “Oh!” and I tapped the ceiling. It was crazy! I was so enamored with the script. I thought it was fantastic. The chance to get this wide range of emotions to play in a movie like this was such an incredible opportunity.

PopHorror: Yeah, Drew, some of your facial expressions were pretty fantastic.

Drew Scheid: They were all honest. I was really scared a lot of the time.

PopHorror: This film was a ton of fun to watch, so I’m sure it was so much fun to make. What was your favorite scene to shoot?

Drew Scheid: I have two. I have two ready. The first was with me and Brianne Tju [PopHorror interview], who plays Ever and who is fantastic. When we get to the scene on the bus when we’re trying to find the phones. We’ve been running away from zombies, and we finally we get to just tell each other what we’d been feeling and how we feel about each other. That was just a fantastic day. Brianne is so good in this movie.

PopHorror: She is!

Drew Scheid: Getting to watch her everyday… I joked on that day, after we shot that, I was like, “Brianne, your back must hurt from carrying me all day!” Because that was incredible. And this is just a fun one, but in between shot set ups… Remember doing the Scooby Doo run that Marcus called it, Uriah? He would be like, “Okay, we’re setting up over here, but we need shots of you guys running in the hallways, so go!” I loved doing the Scooby Doos, as we called them. Run, run, run out of frame. Then they’d set us up somewhere else, and we’d run, run, run again. Those were always fun. Just high energy.

Uriah Shelton: Everyone was just laughing their asses off by the time we’re just standing in the hallway.

Drew Scheid: The minute we’re standing there, everyone is just laughing, like, “Eh, we got it! We’re good!”

Uriah Shelton: It’s kind of tough to pick a favorite. We really just had a lot of fun filming this. I would say that the scene where I get pushed through the stained glass window. That whole arc from beforehand, I felt like it was just illuminating for the character. Not only for me, but for the audience, too, like, “Why is this guy like this?” And getting to show that totally uninhibited because he’s already changing and his inhibitions are just gone. He’s just letting everything out. I thought it was just a really fun opportunity. 

PopHorror: I can only imagine what it was like actually making this film. This is not the first foray into horror for either of you. Would you say that you were horror fans before?

Drew Scheid: Definitely a fan. I’m so scared still during every horror movie I watch. I’m terrified. Getting to do horror is like almost… Sometimes you hear other actors say like, “Oh, when you see the thing, you’re less scared of it because you know how it’s made.” Nope. I’m still scared. Like Chip [Joshua Mikel] in the big zombie mask. Anytime I saw that, I was terrified. I was saying to Uriah earlier that the horse that he accidentally slides into in that one scene earlier on, I couldn’t be near that. I couldn’t be like 10 feet near that, because I was so scared. It’s terrifying.

Uriah Shelton: Lucky you! I love the horror genre. I think that, honestly, there are so many different places you can go. You can have it where it’s like this fast-paced, funny stuff, you can have it where it’s noir, and you can have it where it’s just brutal and psychological torment. There are so many different levels for it. But it always seems to put characters in extreme situations that just strip them. It’s a fun thing to be able to see these characters stripped of their identities that they project out into the world. When they’re faced with these horrible, horrible events that are happening, you really see who they are at their bases. And I think that’s something that isn’t necessarily unique to horror. Other films can do it, too, but it’s very prevalent in horror.

PopHorror: I love that so much. I have just one last question for you guys. What is your favorite scary movie?

Uriah Shelton: Oh, man. That’s tough. Drew, you’re going to have to take this one first, man. 

Drew Scheid: Hmm, gosh. My favorite? Get Out, number one, I think was the movie I saw in theaters that was such an incredible experience. I really fell in love with the horror genre and I was like, “I get what you can do with movies like this.” You can say so many things in a scary movie and reach a lot of people. And I’m a big M. Night Shyamalan fan. I really like, basically, all of his movies from Sixth Sense to The Visit which is one of my favorite movies where they go their grandma’s house. And the first Halloween movie is just so fantastic. I just rewatched Halloween, the initial John Carpenter one, and wow. This is so good.

Uriah Shelton: One that I find myself rewatching the most—I don’t even know if you could call it a horror movie—is gripping in the same way horror is. It’s The Lighthouse.

Thank you so much, Uriah and Drew, for taking the time to speak with us. You can watch Unhuman now on digital.