- Directed by John McNaughton
- Written by Mason Nage and Richard Fire
- Starring
- Rae Dawn Chong
- Don Gordon
- Tom Towles
- Antonio Fargas
- Neil Giuntoli
Directors who have just released a film that generates a passionate audience reaction have a tough hurdle ahead of them: What to do as a follow-up? After John Carpenter practically invented the modern slasher film with Halloween (1978), he turned about and tried his hand at a ghost story with an old-fashioned flavor, The Fog (1980). After James Cameron won awards and broke box-office records with Titanic (1997), he… well, he puttered around in other media so he’d never have to stop pretending to be king of the world. So maybe we shouldn’t be discussing him.
Anyway. John McNaughton first garnered cult attention as director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), a disturbing and relentless examination of a fictitious but reality-based mass murderer. His follow-up, five years later, gets as far away as possible from hoeing the same row while staying in the horror field: It’s a movie about an alien convict who rips people’s heads off. Henry was meant as a dark, serious and unforgettable movie experience. In contrast, The Borrower can’t honestly be considered “good,” but at least it aims for “fun.”
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“Am I buggin’ ya? I didn’t mean to bug ya.” |
The premise is quickly introduced for us, as a buglike alien (Richard Wharton) transports a convict (Robert Dryer) to Earth. The convict (hereinafter “the Borrower”) has been “genetically devolved” to human form (with an inexplicable ponytail, to boot), and is being exiled on our fair orb as a punishment worse than death for unspecified murderous acts. He’s also warned that damage to his body will result in some pretty painful metamorphoses.
Now, as we all know, any spaceship approaching Earth which doesn’t announce its presence first to the Pentagon must necessarily be observed by either a) horny teenagers, or b) rednecks. Disappointingly, it’s the latter this time: Bob Laney (Tom Towles, co-star of Henry) and his son Kip (Bentley Mitchum, and yes, I recognized him from Demonic Toys (1991)) are out poaching deer by night when a light descends among the trees. (and I’m doing you a favor by identifying the characters by name; just about every major character goes at least 30 minutes before being introduced by name. Makes for some chaotic note-taking, believe me.) They witness a struggle as the bug pushes the apparent human out into the woods, and Bob even gets a good shot in on the alien; then it’s just them and the Borrower. Far from showing gratitude, the Borrower releases some of that pent-up anger on his rescuers. But apparently two struggles in a row is too much for his body, and we discover exactly what kind of “painful metamorphoses” he has in store: As his hands twist into alien mandibles, his head begins to pulse and shudder — and eventually, it explodes clean off his shoulders. Welcome back to the satisfying era of practical FX, courtesy of Kevin Yagher!
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Coming soon from MacFarlane Toys: The Borrower Bobblehead! |
Bob’s first thought is to exploit this headless freak, so he sends Kip to borrow a van. But in Kip’s absence, the Borrower reasserts himself, grabbing Bob unawares and twisting his head right off to replace the one he lost. This, of course, points out the misapplication of the title, as he certainly never returns the heads he borrows to their rightful owners.
Really, the best part of the movie is the next twenty minutes, as the Bob-Borrower gets a ride into town and stumbles around downtown Chicago at night. Tom Towles demonstrates a keen sense of physical presence; every actor thinks he can behave like an alien unused to human skin, but Towles pulls it off solidly. He also shows a knack for mimicry, as he picks up physical cues from the people he bumps into.
But as you may have noticed, this storyline doesn’t have a natural protagonist. (Unless you’re ready to cheer for the decapitating alien criminal, and even the introduction of redneck fodder doesn’t engender enough sympathy for that.) So what do you do when no protagonist springs organically from the material? Add some cops, of course. Pierce (Rae Dawn Chong) and Krieger (Don Gordon) are a couple of homicide detectives, though when we meet them they’re arresting a suspected serial rapist (Neil Giuntoli, who oddly enough went on to play the title role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 2 (1998)). He almost gets away, thanks to Pierce allowing passers-by to walk between the arrestee and her drawn gun (that kind of incompetence gets you busted back to precinct doormat, doesn’t it?), but she brings him down with a bullet to the leg, establishing herself as one of those “No Guff From The Man” cops we’ve all come to know and love in the movies.
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“I’m too sexy for my head, too sexy for my head…” |
Cop-on-the-edge cred established, Pierce and Krieger are called to the woodsy murder site, where Kip is the main suspect in the decapitation of his own father. Something about the whole story doesn’t sit right with Pierce (and after the proof of her unassailable cop instinct up to now, who could doubt her judgment?), so she… um… waits around until more victims fall into her hands.
As plots go, it’s not much of one. Part of the problem is that, as described above, this is a movie about an alien convict who rips people’s heads off. In classic monster movies (which this movie thinks it’s emulating), the story proper isn’t about the monster; it’s about the squarejawed hero and the lithe heroine, and the complication that the monster introduces into their lives. But here, it’s all about the monster, and he really doesn’t wind the mainspring of the plot well. Bob-Borrower wanders around the city, falls in with friendly bum Julius (Antonio Vargas), spends the night at the mission with him, and the next night has a violent reaction to some cheap hootch; when his head malfunctions again, he appropriates Julius’. Then he stumbles around for a day, faints in a museum, gets carted to the hospital, and steals a doctor’s head (Tony Amendola) heads to the doctor’s home, and steals the dog’s head. The Borrower has no motive, no goals or desires, nothing to give him direction in his meandering between headhunting (remember, this is supposed to be a bloodthirsty alien psychopath). This is not a plot; this is more appropriate called “stuff happening,” extending the running time long enough for the cops to start putting clues together (like, say, discarded heads here and there) and track him down.
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Must… resist… “good head on his shoulders” gag… |
After Tom Towle’s turn as the Borrower, too, the other actors in the same role don’t measure up. They don’t show the same skill in mimicry, especially as far as mimicking Towles’ own performance to add continuity. Yes, the costume is kept the same, and yes, a bloody gash around the neck indicates that this is supposed to be a new head on the same body, but it’s never once convincing. Julius-Borrower’s body makeup, meant to convey the impression of a Caucasian body with an African-American head, doesn’t come close to being adequate. Doctor-Borrower even takes off his shirt to clean up, treating us all to a clear continuity of muscle tone, skin color, and even body hair between head and torso. Worst of all is when the Dog-Borrower revives in the morgue and steals the head of the diminutive female coroner. Sorry, but no. Uh-uh.
Tone is a problem as well. Much of the movie is tongue-in-cheek enough to almost qualify for the “spoof” label from the back of the video box; at any rate, it’s an intentional B-movie for horror fans. But the whole cop storyline has a completely different flavor, with Pierce and the re-escaped rapist playing cat and mouse, and Pierce reacting poorly to the stress. The rapist’s off-screen assault of another female cop (Tamara Clatterbuck) leads to a scene in which Pierce and the other cop understatedly express their own feelings of guilt over what happened, and Pierce promises to bring him in. It’s a well-done and moving scene… but how in the world did it end up in a movie about a head-stealing alien?
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Bask in the star power with me, would you? |
As the running time plays out, it becomes apparently that we’re heading more toward a “stopping” rather than an ending. There’s just not enough steam in the concept as rendered to sustain a full feature. At least there’s a full complement of well-rendered head-ripping effects to help bide the time.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 12
- breasts: 2
- explosions: 1
- dream sequences: 1
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 4
- Tom Towles (Bob Laney) played “Hon’Tihl” in the DS9 episode “Dramatis Personae” and “Dr. Vatm” in the Voyager episode “Rise”
- Tony Amendola (Dr. Cheever) played “Chorus #1″ in the Voyager episode “Muse”
- Madchen Amick (”Megan,” Dr. Cheever’s neighbor) played “Anya as a Young Girl” in the TNG episode “The Dauphin”
- Rif Hutton (”Newscaster”) played a Klingon Guard in Generations
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