The Becomers (2024) Review: Zach Clark Blends Sci-Fi, Comedy and Romance in This Quirky, Lo-Fi Genre Bender
The aliens invading the human bodies in Zach Clark’s The Becomers are unlike the ones seen in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the latter has hostile parasitic alien microbes taking over the anatomies and replicating them in pods to invade planet Earth. The Becomers is about two extraterrestrial beings, who turn out to be separated lovers after leaving their home planet in the hope of a better living on Earth. And yes, it’s a love story that meshes with different genres throughout the compact 86-minute length.
The Becomers begins with the first alien landing from the skies and because it needs proper mobility to move around places, it ends up taking over the body of a human being. First, it was a hunter before the alien gradually ended up in the body of a pregnant woman named Francesca (Isabel Alamin), who was screaming in pain in the backseat of a car. Earlier in the movie, it has the feel and tone of a sci-fi horror, complete with a shockingly inhumane moment.
Once the alien takes over Francesca as the latest human host, we see her check in a motel. She wears sunglasses all the time because she needs to hide her glowing turquoise eyes from being seen by other humans. Soon, she is forced to take over another human body named Carol (Molly Plunk) to assume a different identity after getting herself into trouble. She eventually reunites with her pink-eyed alien lover, who also appears in a human body just like her.
Everything seems to be looking positive at first, especially after the lover takes over Carol’s husband, Gordon (Mike Lopez) and they enjoy their time together living comfortably in a suburban house.
But Zach Clark, who also wrote the screenplay, chooses not to stick to the landing with a straightforward journey. These two alien lovers’ arrival on Earth is not without facing their setbacks as Clark navigates his story into uncharted territory it’s hard to guess where he might go next. The unpredictable nature of the storytelling certainly reflects the aliens taking over from one human body to another.
Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers with its metaphorical context (for instance, Don Siegel’s 1956 original and Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake were respectively released at the heights of McCarthyism a.k.a. Second Red Scare and Watergate scandal and paranoia), he also manages to slip in subtle commentary that echoes the sign of the times. Those times in question revolved around the post-pandemic era, the QAnon conspiracy theory and how things have changed ever since. Desperation and isolation are among the relevant themes that seep through the story but Clark doesn’t go heavy-handed on them.
At the heart of The Becomers, Clark stays true to the genre-bending approach with the aforementioned sci-fi horror, an absurdist comedy and a few rom-com tropes but executed in an unconventional, even gross-out manner. There are no big moments here and given its micro-budget cost, Clark smartly depicts his movie distinctly lo-fi with the special effects kept to a bare minimum. The movie works best during the earlier parts of the movie when the alien takes over Francesca’s body and how she learns to adapt to the surroundings, behave and communicate with human beings she comes across to. The same also goes for the subsequent scenes of Carol and Gordon together and not to forget, one of the most bizarre sex scenes ever seen in recent memory as if David Cronenberg was in hands directing it.
Despite the out-there quirkiness of the movie, there’s an unexpected sense of poignancy watching these two aliens in disguise within the human bodies trying to stay together in peace and harmony. It was also a refreshing change of pace to see an alien invasion movie that isn’t about causing mass destruction and taking over the world. The movie equally benefits from a better-than-expected cast, notably Isabel Alamin and Molly Plunk who play Francesca and Carol respectively. Then, there’s the perfectly deadpan voiceover role narrated by Russell Mael from the pop-rock duo Sparks.
