When a movie bills itself as being “from the makers of Re-Animator and From Beyond,” but Stuart Gordon is dead and Jeffrey Combs nowhere in sight, be careful. In the case of Suitable Flesh, what it means is that Barbara Crampton plays the best friend, Dennis Paoli pens the script based on H.P. Lovecraft‘s “The Thing on the Doorstep,” and Brian Yuzna executive produces. Paoli wrote for Gordon a lot, but there’s a distinct and noticeable drop-off when any other director handles his stuff (Ghoulies II, for instance). And director Joe Lynch, whose best-known credits to date are Wrong Turn 2 and a Venom fan film, is no Stuart Gordon. At times, however, he does mightily try to be.
There Will Be Blood…Eventually
Many are the genre films that start off exciting and peter out into nothing. Suitable Flesh does the opposite. For much of its runtime, it feels like a mediocre TV movie of the sort euphemistically pitched toward housewives, presuming their standards are low. As this stretch is the part of the story being recounted by comely psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham), it’s possible the style is intended as meta-commentary on the way she remembers things. If so, however, the movie never really does anything with this, and the “flashback” doesn’t confine itself to only the events that she witnessed anyway.
Hang in there for the timeline to catch up to the present day though, and you’ll be rewarded with the movie going blood-soaked bananas. No specific spoilers, but perhaps they spent so much time on the special makeup effects that everything else had to be rushed and done in the first take. It would explain a lot, though not, perhaps, the musical choices in the score: tinkly piano for drama, full-’80s style sax for sex scenes. Yes, at 53, Graham is still in Boogie Nights shape.
Brainspotting
The subject of Dr. Derby’s lust, at least initially, is a strange new patient named Asa (Judah Lewis, presumably cast for his skill at bulging out his neck veins), who claims his father is trying to possess his body. The doctor sees potential money in his unique case, and offers him free sessions, both on the couch and eventually in bed, as he has a weird, inexplicable sexual magnetism that trumps her marriage vows. This being a horror movie, he is of course correct about the possession, and in short order the immortal entity that was inside his father moves to Asa, who proceeds to start transferring it to Derby. It’s never clear why the being insists on constant switching – leaving the older dad (Bruce Davison) for a younger body makes sense, but why trade in the young man’s physique so quickly?
Her husband Edward, a barely recognizable, jacked-up Jonathan Schaech, plays dumb, either unable to tell when his wife acts completely out of character or just along for the better ride. Crampton is Daniella, Derby’s ever-vaping colleague to whom the story is being told in the present timeline. Much of the build-up is the usual “nobody believes until it happens right in front of them” frustrations for our protagonist, along with a healthy side of hallucinations (OR ARE THEY?) for cheap shocks.
Lost in This Space
Graham still looks great, while the sets on which she finds herself look like generic, prop-laden Airbnbs nobody actually lives in. Asa’s house might be the same one used for outdoor shots in the first season of American Horror Story. If not, it’s close enough. And just so we remember this is Lovecraft, said scary house features notebooks and wall art of tentacle monster drawings. But don’t expect Cthulhu himself to actually show up.
Lynch clearly finds himself in more of a comfort zone once all the cards are on the table and the entity starts jumping around as everyone tries to kill it. The original story leaves many of its potential ramifications to the imagination, but Lynch proves better at showcasing what he imagined than reproducing what Lovecraft did. Graham is game for whatever, entertainingly playing multiple personalities, but at times the script doesn’t give her much to work with.
Final Verdict:
Perhaps the title of the movie already suggested it, but Suitable Flesh aptly showcases a big difference between horror and gore. Had the build-up been genuinely atmospheric and creepy, the violence could have landed more impactfully and nightmarishly than with a Beavis-and-Butt-head style huh-huh-cool response. As is, it’s only really disturbing in the way most Lifetime movies are disturbing. Do we really think so little of housewives – and in this case, horror fans – that we give them this?
Grade: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.
Suitable Flesh opens in theaters and on-demand Oct. 27.
