gavin6942 Aliens punish one of their own by sending him to earth. The alien is very violent, and when the body he occupies is damaged, he is forced to find another.Originally, the distributor for "Borrower" was Atlantic Releasing Corporation, with William Tennant at the helm. Atlantic had been involved with "Valley Girl" and "Night of the Comet", but folded before "Borrower" could be completed (resulting in director John McNaughton taking it back to Chicago). Atlantic also distributed the "Garbage Pail Kids Movie", which explains why it is prominently featured.Tennant, incidentally, was a friend of Roman Polanski's and his business manager. Of all the terrible things that could happen, he was the man called in to identify the bodies of Sharon Tate and friends after the notorious 1969 Manson murders. (Tennant's whole life is a shambles, with him one time being homeless, sleeping in doorways and another time being a vice president at Columbia when the studio took a huge crash.) McNaughton brought back his actors (Tom Towles and Tracy Arnold) from "Henry", as well as most of the crew. He has said the original cinematographer was awful and had to be replaced (which one from the credits is the bad one is unclear). And also new this time was Kevin Yagher, who worked on Chucky and Freddy (among others) and offered makeup effects here.Rae Dawn Chong plays the detective, and therefore the hero. Her relationship with McNaughton was strained, as she only accepted the role because she needed he money. McNaughton has said it was evident she was making no effort to give a good performance, and anyone who will do something they dislike for money is (in his eyes) just a "whore".As a bonus, we get Mädchen Amick, of "Twin Peaks" fame, briefly appearing as a rock groupie. Whatever happened to her?

meddlecore John McNaughton's The Borrower isn't a very good film, if you ask me. It tells the story of an extraterrestrial creature who has been devolved into a human, and sent to earth as punishment.His earthly exile is witnessed by a couple of gun totin' hicks. They watch as a man is dropped off by a UFO, and his subsequent fight with an alien. They manage to help run the creature off. But when they go to see if the guy is OK...all they can do is watch as his head inexplicably explodes.He doesn't seem to be dead though. Rather, his body attacks the older hick...removing his head and using it as a replacement.The bloody-necked humanoid-looking creature then starts to roam around skid row, where he befriends a couple of junkies.It seems that he is only able utilize the heads of others for a temporary period...before they start to explode. So he is forced to kill one of the junkies, rip off his head, and replace it with his own in the process. After this incident, he roams around a bit more, before passing out in a museum, and being brought to a hospital.While in the hospital he wakes up and finds a doctor. The doctor tries to examine his bleeding neck, but before he is able to, the creature mutates, into it's semi-monstrous form, and murders him. Ripping off his own head, and replacing it with the doctor's (white head, on a black body). When he does this, his body mutates- like a chameleon- to match it's head. The special effects aren't bad...there's just no story to back it up.The film's most hilarious moment occurs when the creature heads back to the doctor's house- where he meets the doctor's dog. Of course, he rips off it's head and replaces it with his own- rendering him a dog-headed alien-human hybrid.Hearing all sorts of weird noises, one of the metalheads from next door looks over the fence to see what is going on. This gets him attacked and killed, but one of the girls manages to shoot and (seemingly) kill the dog-headed beast, in the process.All the while, a female police detective is on the case, trying to track down whatever the hell is responsible for causing all these gruesome deaths. But she is, herself, being stalked by a psychopath who managed to escape from a prison infirmary.The two story lines don't intersect until the last 5 minutes of the film. Here the alien-infested headless corpse manages to reanimate itself inside the morgue, killing the coroner, and taking over her body- before being shot and killed by the male detective. The opportune alien then takes over the body of the dead psychopath- who had been previously killed by the female detective (explaining why it was in the morgue)- leading to the final showdown between it and her (with help from some random interlopers).When all is said and done, this is a pretty basic and poorly constructed film. They force in all sorts of stuff at the end to try and make it work, but they wind up leaving a multitude of loose ends. If you are planning on enjoying this one, you are going to have to suspend disbelief- in order to get around the various plot holes- and just enjoy the special effects. It's not even that funny really. Certainly not the best example of it's kind.3 out of 10.

BA_Harrison You gotta say one thing for director John McNaughton: he certainly hasn't been predictable, having directed horror, comedy, documentary, erotic drama, and even a made-for-TV women in prison flick. For The Borrower, the follow up to his dark, gritty, and critically acclaimed 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer', he stays within the horror genre, but still surprises by drastically changing tack to enter cheesy, B-movie territory with the tale of a violent alien creature, banished to Earth in human form, who regularly requires new heads in order to survive.This hokey story allows McNaughton to indulge in some cool special effects (courtesy of Kevin Yagher), a touch of light hearted humour, and plenty of horror/sci-fi silliness in the vein of The Hidden—and for a while, it looks like his new, fun approach is going to pay off, with the first half-an-hour or so being very entertaining stuff. After the premise has been established, however, the action becomes rather monotonous, with the alien repeatedly swapping heads (allowing several actors to play the monster, including Antonio 'Huggy Bear' Fargas), whilst tough cop Diana Pierce (Rae Dawn Chong) struggles to make sense of the carnage left in his wake.Towards the end, the film is lifted momentarily by a bonkers scene in which the creature, wearing the head of a dog, attacks and kills a metal-head, but this level of craziness isn't maintained for long—a shame, because this is exactly the kind of lunacy the film needed more of. Instead, the momentum quickly wanes, and the film finishes with a very unsatisfying ending that feels as though no-one could really be arsed to think of anything better.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for the dog-headed monster, a bit of dead mouse munching, and a totally gratuitous sex scene.

ep.com ... 'cause once that guy has your head, he won't give it back ;) This is an odd, bizarre little movie... the whole thing is as anticlimactic as it gets and there's no excitement or suspense at all. However, I prefer to take "The Borrower" as a look at society's problems seen through the eyes of an alien convict. This makes for some funny bits. There's one scene, where he sits in a coffee shop, doing nothing at all, and all people around him suddenly grab their guns and start killing each other. Then he he just gets up and walks away, like nothing what happened matters to him. The whole movie's like this. So, if you're going to watch this, think less of a horror movie, more of a social commentary and you know what you're in for. Recommended...