The Borrower (1991)

People are voting emotionally.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

Enjoyable schlock sci-fi that exceeds expectations. "The Borrower" is such an odd film that there was little hope for it to avoid cult status. You get "Scanners"- like exploding alien heads, with replacements being squeezed off innocent victims. The movie has unexpected humor, mostly relating to the hapless alien trying to fit in with homeless street people. Meanwhile, the police are understandably perplexed by the missing heads. The film is not perfect, but there is no denying that it has definite entertainment value. I especially liked the ending, which obviously pointed towards a non existent "Borrower"#2............... - MERK

Five years after John McNaughton made Henry Portrait Of a Serial Killer he made this supposed gory SF horror. It made me think a bit of The Terminator. I mean, somebody coming to earth and start to learn earth. the film opens with an alien punishing another alien by giving him a human face and exile him to earth. Still being an alien he wants to change his identity by ripping of heads and replacing his former head with it. It's all shown with the typical effects of that time, I mean the bladder effects. It's all done by Kevin Yagher, still in the business and known for MI 2 and Friday the 13th final chapter and some Nightmare on Elm Street episodes. So the effects are really good but the movie lacks in storyline, they involved another killer Scully, nothing to do with the alien and nothing to do with the storyline. He's in the movie for no reason and just got shot. I gave it a 5 just for the effects, it's weird that with the actors known in that era and the director and effects that this isn't out on DVD, you can find it still on VHS only in NTSC. Weird, I surely could BORROW a copy.

From John McNaughton, the mastermind behind Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, comes...The Borrower. Whereas Henry is disturbingly realistic, this is the exact opposite. The Borrower is completely absurd. An alien criminal and outcast is de-evolved to human form and exiled to earth. The de-evolution process, however, has made his body unstable and he must "borrow" other people's heads to survive. The story sounds good, but is obviously hard to execute. Tom Towles, also from Henry and numerous other genre classics, is hilarious as one of the borrowed heads. It's too bad that he has the least amount of screen time. The other cast members include Rae Dawn Chong as a detective investigating the murders and Antonio Fargas as a bum that befriends the Borrower. The music is awful and annoying but Kevin Yagher's make-up effects are sufficiently gross. Yagher's gore effects and Towle's performance are the main reasons to watch the movie. The box reads "more animated than Re-Animator" which is a lie but it should please the majority of horror fans.