THE BECOMERS (2023)

New On Demand from Darkstar Pictures!
Directed/Written by Zach Clark.
Starring Russell Mael, Anne Ruttencutter, Molly Plunk, Keith Kelly, Michael C. Hyatt, Nich Kauffman, Frank V. Ross, Mike Lopez, Victoria Misu, Isabel Alamin, Korissa Gabor.
Check out the trailer here!!

Towards the end of the pandemic, a pair of aliens float into the atmosphere, but land in different locations around Chicago. One lands and immediately takes over the body of a passing driver, then leaps from body to body, attempting to find its mate. Along the way, complications involving each of the bodies real lives get in the way of the two aliens to reunite, including a kidnapping attempt, a death cult, a pregnancy, along with the normal pandemic stuff that is still going on.

THE BECOMERS is a low budget Pod People-esque story told from the perspective of one of the aliens. Unlike other Pod People movies, these aliens are not soulless drones. They have emotions like you or I, but also offer a view of humanity from a distance. Sure, this leads to a very cynical view of humanity, as all of the trouble for the aliens come from the human lives they are stealing. But THE BECOMERS flips the script well, and ends up telling a compelling and emotional story, even though its view of humanity is quite depressing.

Cynical world view aside, I was invested in the lives of these two aliens, despite the fact that they switch bodies like clothing. The swapping of actors could have been a problem, as with low budget films, finding solid actors is always challenging, but the film maintains the two characters well as they move from body to body, each of them remaining consistent all the way through with their desires, reactions, and motivations. The film is narrated by composer Russell Mael, which does a good job of filling in information without overlapping with what is going on on-screen, though at times there are some redundancies where obvious feelings are being told to you in order to drive the emotional point home.

The pandemic factors in greatly and this film could be seen as an allegory as to how the world-wide shutdown turned us all into different people by the time we all exited our own homes and reentered the world. I liked the subtle and not so subtle ways small parts of the pandemic were used, such as the rise in and extremity of online debating and seclusion into our own homes away from the usual social groups we once interacted with. The film seems to believe that the pandemic intensified some of our worser qualities. Again, it is a cynical way of looking at things, but I can’t say it isn’t accurate at times.

THE BECOMERS does a good job of telling a low scale, low budget alien invasion story through the lens of two aliens that view humanity as a curiosity. Yes, there is a moment early on where the alien does something pretty awful to a child, and yes, they are leaving many bodies in their wake as they switch from body to body while dissolving their old bodies with some kind of acid vomit. All of that seems to be pretty inhuman and cruel, and the aliens do sound out regret later on about the earlier atrocities they have committed. But somehow, the film is able to make you care for the survival of this confused species. It’s a positive take on the other while having a rather low value on humanity. If that kind of low fi/sci fi sounds good to you, then THE BECOMERS might be something of interest.