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the audience applauded

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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?

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.

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.

The Borrower (1991) is a very good horror, it's very bizarre but i really enjoyed it, Tom Towles and Antonio Fargas made this a very fun outing!!! The movie is about this alien who has committed a bad crime on his own planet and his punishment for the crime is that he is brought to earth and forced to live in a human form!! The aliens head soon explodes when arriving on earth and he goes around stealing other peoples heads, hot on the chase of the alien is a police detective woman (Rae Dawn Chong), the only thing she finds at the scene of the killings is the severed head of the previous victim!!! Like i said before, this movie is very bizarre but yet it's really cool and the characters are all great fun, it has some good gore and special effects too, hunt this down if you like movies like "The Hidden" and "Something is out there".I give "The Borrower" a well deserved 9/10.