Finding Assimilate
A recent late night jaunt of tiredness that felt more like a drunken stupor and less like insomnia drew me out from the confines of my warm bedroom to the cold depths of where the widescreen lay still at the dead of night. Where Prime Video was sending out “come surf with me” vibes. Putting aside that I probably need to stop referring to browsing streaming services as “channel surfing”. Let’s cut the long intro short by saying I eventually happened upon a 2019 science fiction horror flick named Assimilate.
The synopsis briefed me as all independent sci-fi horror films do: oversold and with a trailer that doesn’t meet the expectations of the copy. Probably written by a young and overzealous PR assistant who’s since lost their job. The premise inviting the viewer into middle-North America, in a boring town where two wannabe YouTube stars are desperate to make it big and so laid bare is the reason for the upcoming camera angles that range from third person to vlogging to found footage to classic movie shots. So if that sounds like it’ll give you a headache then it definitely will and you should quit while you’re ahead!
Is it a Clone or a Duplicate?
The two teens, Zach Henderson and Randy Foster, unwillingly stumble across an alien plot to replace everyone in their town with alien duplicates. They discover the means to do this – by slug creature (reminiscent of Alien facehuggers or the ticks in Ticks) which bites its victim as a means to sample your DNA. Before returning to this pod which births an exact replica of you. A clone, if you will.
Only the clone is driven by this uncontrollable primal instinct to seek out the original and harvest the person’s memories like some kind of synaptic vacuum. Giving enough reason to explain the cold open where we see Shadowhunters star Katherine McNamara get attacked by her alien duplicate and then never be seen again – presumably dead. HA!
As Zach and Randy get closer to discovering what’s going on in the town they seek out the help of their friend, Kayla, who has noticed her parents are behaving really strange. One dead parent’s corpse folded into a washing basket later, the trio head to the house of the Deputy and they start to tell him about this plot going on. Only to realise the Deputy already knows because he killed his alien duplicate when it tried to murder him.
This brings an entire town’s worth of alien duplicates bearing down on the Deputy’s house which is rolled down the hill. He’s then abducted and never seen again. Randy hatches this hair-brained scheme – to lead the mob of alien duplicates away from the house wreckage while Kayla and Zach escape so they can plan their next move.
If your thoughts by now are “what in the sweet ‘Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers’ hell is going on” then that’s the precise reaction you should be having. It becomes clear to Zach and Kayla they are alone as they try to escape town. A plan made complicated when they try to rescue Kayla’s little brother when they probably should’ve just left the little shit behind. This moment sets the film down a darker road as we witness the alien duplicates burning the corpses of their body doubles on a twenty foot high bonfire. Not to mention the additional anxiety of Zach and Kayla’s own body doubles now trying to hunt them down and kill them via mind-suck.
The Bizarre Assimilation Narrative
With the town all but lost, Zach realises the only way for help to come to their town is if he gets the word out. So Zach and Kayla bust into a server farm and upload all the footage he’s gathered with his vlogging bodycam to YouTube. Apparently no editing is required. Their body doubles break into the server farm but thanks to some quick thinking by Zach, both he and Kayla outwit their duplicates and trap them in the server farm – to be exposed to gas.
Eventually Zach and Kayla find her little brother who is watching TV in a random house which begs this question: is this really her little brother or a duplicate? On the TV, a world news report shows duplicates all over the world taking over and burning the corpses of humans. Leading Kayla to realise:
“We weren’t the first town, we are the last.”
This causes the trio to flee and try to hide out this alien filled apocalypse of duplicates, burning corpses and DNA harvesting slugs. Meanwhile, on YouTube, Zach’s video starts to get comments and views by survivors telling their story and how they’re going to survive this new world order.
Assimilate started off as what felt like a poorly shot special from The CW Network but soon morphed into a modern day mix of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Faculty – darker, bleaker and culminating with an eradication apocalypse end to the story. Lots of great ideas here which could’ve been executed to far greater effect – if they weren’t just phoned in. But that’s low budget storytelling for you. The underlying commentary of keeping your head down and sticking to content creation amidst an alien apocalypse – is a strange one to say the least.
Does it deserve a 5.3 on IMDB?
Definitely not. I’d give it at least 5.4.
More in Movies, Science Fiction
