Written by: Ryan Dailey
Suitable Flesh is a loose, gender swapped retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep. The film is mediocre, despite drawing inspiration from arguably one of the best writers of all time. In fact, the horror nation might find it closer to the quality of Fallen, which can be said is inspired by the same Lovecraft premise, in terms of the quality of the story telling, in that it is fairly mundane. Not to say that either film is terrible, they are just average.
Suitable Flesh opens with protagonist Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham) recalling her tale of terror to her colleague and best friend, Danilella Upton (Barbrara Crampton) inside of her cell in Miskatonic’s mental health ward.
Derby recounts her trope of having a stellar life before the events of the film, perfect career, loving husband and all. Her cookie cutter movie existence is shattered when Asa Waite timidly enters her office, asking for help. This is when the film starts to go off the rails.
The film at this point becomes Freaky Friday fan fiction written by a horny preteen watching softcore porn on Cinemax past their bedtime.
Suitable Flesh becomes a film full of random sex scenes,confusing body swaps and one liners that may have sounded good in the author’s head but turned out really terrible on screen. The performances are not awful and the direction is fine enough, aside from “Oh! I saw this in an Argento film! Add it!,” or, “You know what this film needs? A Star Wars wipe.”
Horror-nation, do yourselves a favor. If you have not read the story, watch the movie first. You will be able to enjoy this more as a stand alone film. It will not raise it up from the abyss of monotony, but it will provide you with a more pleasurable viewing.
Suitable Flesh is currently streaming on Shudder.