Assimilate Review
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. Now, putting aside the fact that I probably need to stop referring to aimlessly browsing through the archives of Prime Video as “channel surfing” because the kids will have no idea what the hell that is. Let’s just sum it up by saying I eventually happened upon a 2019 science fiction horror flick named Assimilate.
The synopsis read as all independent sci-fi horror films do: oversold and with a trailer that doesn’t quite meet the expectations of the copy that a young and overzealous PR assistant who was far too underpaid to write. The premise invites the reader 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.
Is it a Clone or is it 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 that the means to do this is by this slug creature (reminiscent of Alien’s facehuggers or the ticks in Ticks) which bites its victim as a means to sample your DNA and then returns the sample to this pod which then 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 then harvest your memories like some kind of synaptic vacuum. Giving reason and just explanation to the cold open where we see Shadowhunters star Katherine McNamara get attacked by her alien duplicate and then never be seen again (presumably dead).
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 is noticing that 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 that the Deputy already knows because he’s already killed his alien duplicate that tried to kill him.
This brings an entire town’s worth of alien duplicates bearing down on the Deputy’s house which is rolled down the hill and who is then abducted and never to be seen again. While Randy leads the mob of alien duplicates away from the house wreckage, giving Kayla and Zach the opportunity to escape and plan their next move.
If your thoughts by now are “what in the invasion of the body snatchers hell is going on” then that’s the precise reaction you should be having. It becomes abundantly clear to Zach and Kayla that they are alone as they try to escape town. A plan made complicated when they try to rescue Kayla’s little brother. A moment that sets this 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 then.
The Bizarre Assimilate Narrative
With the town all but lost, Zach realises that 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 is a world news report showing duplicates all over the world taking over and burning the corpses of humans. This leads 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 but with a far darker outlook as the alien invasion turns into the apocalypse. Lots of great ideas here that could’ve been executed to far greater effect with a bigger budget but that’s low budget storytelling for you. The bizarre narrative here that keeping your head down and concentrating only on content creation will bring about the end of the world is strange to say the least.
Did it deserve 2.5 on IMDB? Probably not. I give it at least a 2.6.
What did you think of Assimilate?
Did Assimilate creep you out? Was it better than you expected or did it fall flat on its face?
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