The Borrower is a 1991 American science fiction

Science fiction film

Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...

 / horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 directed by John McNaughton

John McNaughton

John McNaughton is an American film and television director, originally from Chicago, Illinois.-Biography:His first feature film, made in 1986, was Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a film McNaughton directed, co-wrote, and co-produced. Numerous complications plagued the controversial film,...

. The film is a B-movie

B-movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

 about an alien serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

, who is sent to Earth to live among humans as a form of penalty. It stars Rae Dawn Chong

Rae Dawn Chong

Rae Dawn Chong is a Canadian-American actress.-Life and career:Chong was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the daughter of Maxine Sneed and Tommy Chong. She and her sister Robbi were raised by her grandmother, Tommy Chong's mother. Chong's father is of Chinese and Scottish-Irish ancestry and her...

 (daughter of actor/musician Tommy Chong

Tommy Chong

Tommy Chong is a Canadian-American comedian, actor, writer, director, activist, and musician who is well known for his stereotypical portrayals of hippie-era stoners...

), Tom Towles

Tom Towles

Tom Towles is an American actor.Towles was born and raised in Chicago. He became an actor after a stint in the U.S. Marines, beginning with an uncredited performance in Dog Day Afternoon . He has appeared in film and television extensively since the 1980s...

 and Antonio Fargas

Antonio Fargas

Antonio Juan Fargas is an American actor famous for his roles in 1970s blaxploitation movies, as well as his portrayal of Huggy Bear in the 1970s TV series Starsky and Hutch.-Biography:...

.

Tony Amendola

Tony Amendola

Tony Amendola is an American actor who is best known for his recurring role as the Jaffa master Bra'tac in Stargate SG-1.-Career:Major movie roles include Blow, The Mask of Zorro and its sequel, The Legend of Zorro...

 (who would later be widely known as Bra'tac on SG-1

Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...

) has a short appearance as a doctor. Mädchen Amick

Mädchen Amick

Mädchen Amick is an American actress best known for playing Shelly Johnson on the cult television series Twin Peaks and its 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.-Early life:...

, of Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...

fame, briefly appears as a rock groupie

Groupie

A groupie is a person who seeks emotional and sexual intimacy with a musician or other celebrity. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but the word is also used in a more general sense, especially in casual conversation....

. Pamela Norris

Pamela Norris

Pamela Norris in an American screenwriter and producer. Among other credits, she co-wrote the screenplay for the 1989 film Troop Beverly Hills and was executive producer of the sitcom Designing Women...

 cameos as a hooker. In one scene there is a reference to one of McNaughton's previous films and one of the most well known and revered of his filmography, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a 1986 crime horror film directed and co-written by John McNaughton about the random crime spree of a serial killer who seemingly operates with impunity. It stars Michael Rooker as the nomadic killer Henry, Tom Towles as Otis, a prison buddy with whom Henry is...

, whose poster can be seen on the street.

Plot

The alien's penalty includes having his body genetically transformed to look like a human's, but since this transformation is not perfect, after a while his body starts to revert back to its original form and his head explodes, prompting him to "borrow" a new head from the next person happening to be present at the time -by squeezing it off with a crab-like claw and placing it on its own neck. Female cop Pierce (Chong) and her partner try to make sense of the ongoing killing spree, which stands out through the fact that all victims are missing their heads, slowly coming to the conclusion that they are facing a rather unearthly killer.