What do you do when you unleash perhaps the singularly most
disturbing serial killer film of the 1980s with Henry: Portrait of a Serial
Killer as your directorial debut?
Considered a film so disturbing it remained without a distributor for
almost five years, it set the benchmark for which all subsequent serial killer
film ruminations would springboard from.
Vicious, gritty and raw 16mm docudrama, it was met with enormous
controversy and censorship as well as widespread critical acclaim.
Well, after cementing himself as one of the
most formidable horror purveyors of the decade, the obvious next step was to
start clowning around with more or less the same cast and crew in the wonderfully
silly sci-fi/horror slasher The Borrower. A film designed to show even the horror genre’s
meanest nastiest realisateur was, prior to his eventual Hollywood tenure, more
than capable of generating horror comedy laughter by way of Sam Raimi or Frank
Henenlotter.
Between its sneaky cameos including but not limited to Antonio Fargas as
a homeless person, Tony Amendola as an unfortunate doctor and Twin Peaks starlet
Mädchen Amick as a rock groupie, the film is a showcase of screen personalities
with several actors taking turns playing the head robbing alien amid a bevy of
special effects makeup shots designed by Sleepy Hollow artist Kevin
Yagher. Mostly led by Rae Dawn Chong as
a tough cop playing against her typecast damsel in distress from Commando
including taking on toughies twice her size in several scenes, the movie falls
somewhere between Brain Damage and Invasion of the Body Snatchers with
just a few reminders it’s coming from the guy who gave us Henry.
As with the film that put John McNaughton on the map in the first place, The Borrower faced distribution hell that kept it on the shelf for three years. Completed in 1988 before Atlantic Entertainment Group went bankrupt until Cannon Pictures picked it up in 1991, the film also suffered heavy MPAA cuts to obtain a more commercially viable R rating and to make matters worse Rae Dawn Chong was quick to bash the film in the press saying it had the worst script she ever read with McNaughton later suggesting she was perhaps overqualified for the role. Interestingly, Chicago’s beloved Music Box Theater which also sponsored Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’s theatrical run came to the rescue offering to book The Borrower at no additional costs to Cannon and soon after a successful movie palace run Cannon eventually struck more prints.
The idea of
remaking Henry with a 1950s inspired sci-fi monster creation running
around in it is absurd enough by itself but in the end McNaughton had the last
laugh in his final official horror film for over another decade before charting
his way into Hollywood with Mad Dog and Glory and Wild Things. After so terribly shocking audiences with Henry,
McNaughton honestly earned the right to let a fart out in a theater playing his
own movie, seeping gross laughter into the horror proceedings and Scream
Factory’s disc release though light on extras looks splendid.
--Andrew Kotwicki