This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.There’s no shortage of body snatching aliens in Hollywood, but none quite like those of The Becomers. That’s because, instead of exploring the paranoia that comes with the suspicion that people close to you might be impostors, Zach Clark’s latest movie focuses instead on the aliens’ journey while trying to fit in as part of a world they don’t quite understand. It’s a refreshing take on the trope that turns things upside down while constantly challenging expectations. Yet, as inventive as The Becomers might be, Clark’s audacious combination of romance, sci-fi, and absurd comedy can feel too scattered to hold an audience.

The Becomers starts like many alien movies with the arrival of an extraterrestrial creature on Earth. The opening sets the ground rules for the invading species, underlining how they are capable of claiming any human body as their own. For the next half hour, we’ll follow the alien protagonist as they jump from one host to another, slowly getting used to human vocal cords and communication habits. As simple as The Becomers can be during the first third of the movie, there’s something fascinating about this inverted journey. We follow the usual villain of body snatching movies and understand the invasion experience through their eyes. There’s an anxious atmosphere as the alien tries to fit in, afraid of being exposed as a fraud. It’s an extremely human feeling, which explains why this otherworldly adventure captures the attention despite obvious budget limitations.

After this lengthy introduction, The Becomers turns into a romantic comedy of sorts as the alien protagonist finally reunites with his lover from a distant galaxy. From that moment on, the movie is all about these two gender-fluid people doing what they can to stay together, while the necessity of using specific human bodies threatens to pull them apart. The romance bit of The Becomers is cheesy, but there’s also a certain beauty in how the movie proclaims the unstoppable potency of love. It is a force capable of shattering the barriers raised by space and time to keep soulmates apart.

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‘The Becomers’ Genre-Bending Experiment Don’t Always Work
Image via Fantasia Film Festival

The film also boasts a layer of absurd comedy as the aliens discover their victims might hide dark secrets they didn’t anticipate. Not every joke lands in The Becomers, but when they do, the movie transmutes into a surreal experiment in which aliens, without full knowledge of who are the people they inhabit, get involved in all sorts of wacky situations. After all, since the aliens choose their hosts according to random opportunities, they can never know for sure what the humans were doing before being abducted.

While one can admire Clark’s ambitions in The Becomers, the movie does struggle to keep a clear tone. Genre-bending stories work best when they find a way to make their distinctive styles complement each other, forming a cohesive whole. That’s not the case with The Becomers as different plot lines are constantly competing for attention. As a result, those trying to follow the love story at the center of the movie might be disgusted by the gruesome violence that can result from the shock comedy bits. Furthermore, the initial paranoia of the movie’s intro is quickly dropped by a more sugary approach to relationships. So, instead of a unified movie that drinks from multiple sources, it’s like The Becomers is a patchwork of different stories that never blend in too well.

There’s also a distracting narrator (Russell Mael) making their way in between scenes to explain why the body snatching aliens have decided to come to Earth. While the narration might satiate spectators that can’t stand ambiguity, the story of The Becomers is simple enough to do without exposition. Since so much of the film is dedicated to the dynamics of the alien couple, the script had the opportunity to deal with the invaders’ backgrounds in a more organic way.

The Becomers also makes it challenging for the audience to care about its main characters as they are constantly changing faces. While the story demands the alien couple swap bodies every few scenes, the cast struggles to keep the characters’ personalities consistent. Each actor seems to have a different idea of how a weird outcast alien would behave, to mixed results. As such, for some viewers, it can be hard even to identify which alien we are following in some scenes. Clark tries to make things easier by giving each alien its unique color of glowing eyes. Still, as the invaders are hiding their eyes for most scenes, the issue remains.

Even if The Becomers is undoubtedly flawed, Clark’s latest movie has too many good ideas to be ignored. Yes, it misses many shots it takes. Nevertheless, The Becomers is a movie that’s interesting even in its misfires, as there’s always something quirky and curious happening on the screen. This is not a movie that will be universally beloved, but those willing to embrace the handmade nature of Clark’s movie will find an intriguing amalgamation of cringe love and Cronenbergian body horror.

Rating: B-

The Big Picture The Becomers offers a refreshing take on the body snatching alien trope by focusing on the aliens’ struggle to navigate an unfamiliar world. The movie creates an anxious atmosphere as the alien protagonist try to blend in and avoid being exposed, offering an interesting exploration of the invasion experience through their eyes. While The Becomers combines romance, sci-fi, and absurd comedy, its scattered approach and competing plot lines may make it challenging for the audience to fully engage with the characters and find a cohesive tone. The Becomers had its world premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival 2023.