Pandemic pod-people horror-romance The Becomers goes full GooAnon
The Becomers. // Courtesy Dark Star Pictures
I adore Zach Clark. His coked-up Christmas film White Reindeer is a holiday rewatch tradition in this household, and 2016’s goth’d-out Little Sister is a must-watch. His work always hits a specific indie discomfort, keeping audiences guessing as he bobs and weaves across unexpected genres. They’re always funny and packed with heart, but can contain stretches that can veer into sincere, miserable, drama—which is delightful, as films violent or bizarre can find weight and heft you could never find from a creator who sticks to his lane.
The Becomers cranks Clark’s work up a significant degree, as a very human story about love and loss gets disguised as an alien invasion flick with grotesquery to spare.
The film’s opening sequence comes in hot, with a two-minute taste test for whether or not an audience has the stomach to endure what comes next. The blend of horror-comedy that dives off the darkest end of the spectrum smashes up against cough syrup surreality with an unhealthy dollop of video nasty drizzled atop. That the next thirty minutes will cycle through four disconnected tonal shifts—before leaning toward being a different feature altogether—is inexplicably complimentary.
The Becomers begins as a sci-fi horror mangle, where a body possessing alien has stolen a woman’s flesh, but can’t distract from having neon glow burst from her eye sockets. As she waits to acquire color changing contacts, she stumbles through the uncomfortable advances of a cheap hotel manager before tracking down a glow-eyed travelling companion—a reunion with the being’s otherworldly lover.
The two visitors take up residence in the bodies of a married couple and begin to live out a peaceful, content existence with each other. For a film that started in Street Trash territory, winding up in adorable suburban bliss delivered sincerely would’ve be a perfectly good ending—a real triumph of hop-scotching genres. But Clark has no interest in stopping here.
What began as star-crossed lovers from beyond the stars starts to get even weirder, as humanity veers wildly off-course during the pandemic and gives rise to conspiracy theories, cults, and destabilization that alien invaders weren’t prepared to navigate. What could have ended in peace falls to pieces as QAnon adjacent paranoia makes people too problematic to predict.
Turns out it takes gooey space creatures to hold a mirror up to just how much humanity has lost its way, and their reluctance to ignore our predicaments is more damning than any armageddon trick could pull.
The Becomers is in limited theatrical release now, and comes to streaming platforms on Sept. 24.
