By The body-snatcher genre is a classic staple of cinematic horror. From the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers to its successor (with the same title) in 1978, the trope of aliens invading Earth by taking over the bodies of humans is not new but is still scary. Zach Clark’s latest film, The Becomers, puts a fresh spin on the sci-fi horror subgenre for a modern audience.
The Becomers
Director: Zach Clark
Release Date: August 23, 2024 (Limited US)
Rating: Not Yet Rated
The premise of The Becomers is rather straightforward – an alien arrives on Earth and searches for their lost alien love by hopping from person to person. They reunite with their alien love and the two must try to blend in as a human couple to remain together. A run-in with a cult and their political target forces the two aliens to separate once again, and they must start over in their search for one another.
The Becomers is an interesting take on the body snatcher genre because it explicitly puts viewers in the perspective of the aliens. Rather than centering the film on humans attempting to stay safe from their alien invaders, we empathize with the two alien characters of The Becomers. Through narration of the first alien (voiced by Russell Mael of the band Sparks) we learn of the tough economic conditions that pushed the aliens into relocating to Earth.
From Dark Star Pictures.
This striking empathy does not take away from the aliens’ ability to easily kill humans and replace their bodies with the power of their glowing eyes. While the film still wants you to feel bad for most of the humans, a few seem like just bad enough people to deserve their fates. The narrative is complicated when it’s revealed that the second alien is impregnated, juxtaposing the first body jump where a pregnant woman is snatched while giving birth.
This alien pregnancy leads me to the most interesting part of The Becomers. Body-snatching films tend to have an element of gender play within them, as the alien bodies are never really seen nor ascribed gender. The Becomers enhances this conversation about gender by purposefully interrupting roles and removing gender from their relationships entirely.
From Dark Star Pictures.
These aliens, whom we can only assume do not have ideas about gender comparable to humans, will easily “swap” genders by snatching the bodies of humans at random, and when the alien pregnancy is revealed it is while the second alien is in a “male” body.
By making the aliens and the body-snatching genre explicitly queer (not to mention when they are both in “female” bodies), The Becomers adds a complex layer to the subgenre. The layering of the film is heightened by its placement in modern politics and fears, similar to past fears about communism seen in the older body-snatcher films.
From Dark Star Pictures.
Clark includes bits pointing to distrust in politicians and the ways that people abuse power, especially sexually. The Becomers responds directly to the Trump presidency by giving the vulnerable people (working class, people of color, women) the power to fight against systems of power.
For all of these reasons, The Becomers is a fun take on an established horror trope. The core being an intergalactic love story – blending horror with comedy and romance – appeals to a broad range of viewers. There’s really not much I didn’t like about the film, and after seeing this and Zach Clark’s Little Sister, I’m excited to see what else he creates.
