FILM REVIEW: Josh Reviews LIFECHANGER

Directed: by Justin McConnell.

Starring: Lora Burke, Jack Foley, Elitsa Bako.

Lifechanger is an interesting take on the concepts of possession and shape-shifting. You see, our main character is a mutant who can take over the body of any human it chooses, just by coming into physical contact with them. Although the main character narrates the film in a male voice, the mutant can either be male or female bodies, thereby giving the character a fluid gender identity - which I'll discuss further later. As the story unfolds, we, as the audience, learn that the mutant first discovered its 'gift' when it took over it's mother's body.

As mentioned before, the entity's can take over a man or woman, and it accomplishes this by pushing out the owner's soul out and leaving their respective bodies a dried-up husk - once it's done with them. While this process was initially easy, allowing the entity to hold onto a body for years, the conflict of the film develops from a new realization: it can now only hold on to a body for a few hours to a day - at most - before the body tries to rid itself of it. The only thing that appears to delay the body's potential rejection are antibiotics -implying that the mutant's "possession" is, in fact, organic and not spiritual.

In addition to this predicament, we are also provided with an additional plot point facing the entity. During that time (mentioned above) in which the shape-shiftier has a easier time holding onto bodies, it met and married a woman, but never told her the truth about itself. To make matters worse, a few years into the marriage, the entity started to have "the issues" (discussed prior) with its body possession and had to move on. Despite this, the love it has for the wife never relinquishes as it tries to reconnect with her in different forms.

If you didn't notice, I really liked this movie. The shape-shiftier is an interesting character and quite easy to sympathize with - even though, it's doing evil things to stay alive and reconnect with his/her wife. McConnell's direction is quite impressive here as he gets the most out of the talents that he has handling lighting as well as those handling the camera. Additionally, all of the actors playing the shape-shiftier throughout the film do a terrific job with the character. The only thing I had an issue with was the use of narration from the shapeshifter. While it's helpful to discover more and more details about the character, it drags the movie in places and even distracts from the action. All in all though, I still found the film to be very well done and worth watching.

Overall grade: B+

Lifechanger releases today on VOD.