Director: Zach Clark
Writers: Zach Clark
Stars: Russell Mael, Molly Plunk, Anne Ruttencutter
Synopsis: A body-snatching alien comes to Earth, reconnects with their partner, and tries to find their way in modern America.
From the moment Zach Clark’s uber-wonky, deadpan alien comedy The Becomers begins, it’s abundantly clear that the writer-director is something of a cinephile. Echoes of film history are draped all over his fifth feature, from its opening shot – a seemingly-animated planet Earth that looks like it was snatched off of Fantastic Planet’s cutting room floor – to its overall thesis statement – the movie could be described as Body Snatchers told in the vein of Coneheads and Mars Attacks! – Clark’s answer to the aliens-in-human-bodies formula doesn’t pull from the great sci-fi works of cinema’s past as much as it clearly admires those that have come before it. Best of all, The Becomers takes on a mold of its own, much like the body-snatching extraterrestrials within, and roams a landscape that is perhaps overpopulated yet will never turn down a breath of fresh air. Clark’s happy to oblige, as long as his offering can be populated with multi-colored acidic vomit and an Eyes Wide Shut reference for the ages. (And boy, does it ever.)
Likely destined to become a future midnight stalwart at the IFC Center, The Becomers tells a tale you may have heard before, just in a lo-fi register that wisely positions it as a fresh parody-adjacent work rather than a straight faced alien film. (The good news is that Clark doesn’t seem too interested in turning in his own Alien interquel, something this summer already has to offer.) Somehow, it’s also as romantic a film as the year of our lord 2024 has seen yet, with sincere apologies to the best efforts of *insert streamer’s name here’s* copy-paste algorithm. The story goes something like this: A bunch of aliens separately arrive on Earth and are thrown into cognitive disarray as they attempt to find their footing on a new planet, all while searching for their respective “lovers.” Indeed, that’s what they all call their paramours, much to the confusion of the humans many of them must save face around once they inhabit their suburb-dwelling hosts. This makes for a persistent quirky undertone that might otherwise grow tired if Clark wasn’t so committed to its absurdity.
Of course, what tends to happen when those that are not-of-this-world seize the hull of a living soul is… well, let’s just say that results typically vary from maintaining a passing resemblance to being so off that no one would ever believe that this thing they recognize is really their friendly neighbor whose casseroles are infamous around the cul-de-sac. In The Becomers, the alien’s mission is simple: Get by just long enough for total occupation to unfold, and for “no questions asked” to become the new normal. In order to get there, they must move from body to body until the perfect host is obtained, even if that means taking part in a Q-Anon-esque cult that is desperate to bring a Middle-America governor who’s facing too many allegations to list (Keith Kelly) to justice.
That Clark is so willing to swing for the fences with his dry humor makes up for the overtness of some of his references, the character of Governor Olatka being the most pointed and obvious of the bunch. His marriage is failing; he’s disgraced; he’s basically the stand-in for whatever controversial politician you can think of, and the depth stops there. Thankfully, there’s plenty of plot to work with, not to mention that the governor is locked in the basement of The Becomers’ main martians, Carol (Molly Plunk) and Gordon (Mike Lopez), originally unbeknownst to the lovers. Their vessel’s neighbors have also noticed their collective retreat from public life and grown wary of their actions. Who’s one to turn down a subplot marked with mystery?
In the case of those around the aliens becoming inquisitive, it helps that the film’s setting is mid-pandemic, a time when wearing masks and speaking through screen doors until feeling safe enough to invite a few familiar faces indoors was the norm. Related to that detail is the idea of nosiness, a much more difficult practice when you can’t (or shouldn’t) be speaking to someone face to face. This invites a clever smattering of references to events that any viewer can likely relate to, albeit unfondly, like the dreadful sensation of seeing sensationalist messages appear as posts and likes on one’s Facebook page just before they delete their profiles so as to avoid Big Brother’s wrath. But what do the aliens know about that? Were they less aware of their task, a likely response to “Hey, why did you get off Facebook?” might have been, “What’s Facebook?”
But it’s that sort of lack of predictability that is a calling card for The Becomers, stretching from its pink and foggy opening credits to its abrupt-yet-earned conclusion. It’s a scheme that allows the viewer to ruminate on some of the wilder moments peppered throughout the film without ever focusing on them too much so as to lose sight of the greater thematic intent. For instance: Francesca (Isabel Alamin) tosses her newborn baby into a fire; ever seen that before? Additionally, Cronenberg-ian body horror is employed often, and despite it sometimes feeling like it’s being used to fill space, or to forcibly bridge from one scene to another, it’s a stunning visual touch – kudos to the makeup team, led by V/H/S/99 and 85’s Maegan Rebecca, and visual effects head Joshua James Johnson (A Ghost Story) – that is captured beautifully, as is much of the film, through the lens of Clark’s go-to cinematographer, Daryl Pittman.
Perhaps the film is a more successful work of experienced sci-fi technicians than it is a scathing satire from the guy behind Little Sister. But if nothing else, it shows that Clark is as adept at putting together a team as he is giving them something out-of-this-world to help create. The Becomers doesn’t transcend time and space, instead opting to show us a portrait of the things dwelling deep in the cosmos that we have yet to see, at least not illustrated in such an abstract style. Sometimes, that’s enough.
