THE BORROWER

The Borrower Movie Review

An alien must face the greatest punishment known to its species--damnation to a horrible planet known as Earth. As if that's not bad enough, it also has to take the form of a human...poor thing. After going a while without watching a horror film from the 1990's, I decided to skim through everything offered on my Roku device, landing on Vudu. While this offered well over 300 free to watch horror films, very few were from the 1990's (this movie was shot in 1989, but not released until 1991, so I consider it a 90's movie). Long-time readers will know I am not fond of this decade's horror films in general, and this lack of options pretty well defines that ten year period--while there certainly were some gems, the decade as a whole didn't have a lot to offer. Enough with the history lesson and back to our feature. This one stars Rae Dawn Chong (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie), who is best known for being the son of Tommy Chong and for being married to C. Thomas Howell. Chong was a fairly popular actress throughout the early to mid 1980's, but by the time this film came out in 1991, her stardom had all but vanished.

Or it went up in smoke, if you will

Soon after arriving, the alien's human head explodes, so it has to get a new one, which lays the groundwork of the film--the alien goes from person to person, tearing their head off to use it when its head nears expiration. This gives the movie a Jason Goes to Hell vibe, which is never a good thing, and there is something very distracting about the head-switching--when the alien switches heads, it also gets the body he just took the head from...even though we see the body is being left behind. This becomes obvious when it goes from a white guy's head to a black guy's head, and now also has the black dude's body, which becomes a white dude's body after getting the next white guy's head.

Black dude and white dude

We do see an exception to this when our alien takes the head of...a dog, at which time it keeps a human body, providing a memorable visual. From the acting to the story to the horribly unfunny comedic elements, practically everything about this movie is bad, but the cheesy alien costume and some of the special effects will provide enough to keep your attention. Aside from Chong, you may also recognize Tom Towles (Night of the Living Dead), and much like Chong, he seems uninterested in this movie. Unless you are really in the mood for a bad 90's flick, I see no reason to recommend watching this one.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 4

The Borrower Movie Trailer