‘Suitable Flesh’ Movie Review: A Horny, Campy Body-Swap B-Movie That Swings For Those Fences
Photo from RLJE Films
From Jeremy Kibler
If Cinemax After Dark produced a warped, freaky-deaky remake of Freaky Friday, it might look something like Suitable Flesh. This is actually adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Thing on the Doorstep,” with a key gender reversal and a lot of affection for the influential Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna. Written by veteran screenwriter Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator and From Beyond) and directed by Joe Lynch (Mayhem), Suitable Flesh is a horny, campy hybrid of a body-swap fantasy, a gory occult horror movie, and an erotic thriller that isn’t afraid of sex.
Heather Graham is very game and gets to cut loose (eventually) as Dr. Elizabeth Derby, a psychiatrist who cares too much. She has her own successful practice and a doting husband, Eddie (Jonathan Schaech, rightfully seizing the opportunity to be the more topless one). When a troubled young man named Asa (Judah Lewis) comes into her office without an appointment, confiding in Beth about his home life with his father (a wickedly funny Bruce Davison) and then having a manic episode, she’s drawn to him and wants to help. Even though the audience knows she should completely forget about this new patient, Beth is inexplicably obsessed. Little does Beth know that Asa isn’t actually Asa, and once Beth is seduced, her body gets invaded as well.
Suitable Flesh promptly starts with a terrifically stylish opening title sequence that transitions into the point-of-view from inside a bodybag. (There’s more iris transitions and match cuts where that came from.) The film is told through flashback, as Dr. Derby from a padded cell in a psych ward tells her colleague and best friend, Dr. Danni Upton (Barbara Crampton), how she got there. A great deal of this will feel amateurishly executed to those expecting a straight horror movie, but Suitable Flesh has a soapy, heightened tone and sticks to it. It’s wonky on all levels, and leaning in all the way is key here for Lovecraft’s material.
Graham hasn’t been given this much free rein or scenery to chew in a role in quite some time. When it’s “Asa” inside of Beth—drinking scotch in the afternoon, having a cigarette, and riding her husband like it’s exciting again—Graham is having a ball. Same goes for Judah Lewis, who gets to play different versions of the Asa we see. Finally, awesome horror legend Barbara Crampton is cool as hell, carrying herself with intelligence and badass authority as Dr. Danni Upton, Beth’s colleague and best friend who vapes a lot.
Taking itself as seriously as a personality disorder but well aware of its B-movie aspirations, Suitable Flesh is a wild ride that swings for those fences (and might even earn a badge for Coolest Death Presentation Via Car Back-Up Camera). Even if it doesn’t always make it over that proverbial fence, it’s never, not once, boring.
Rating: 3/5
Suitable Flesh hits theaters and on demand on October 27, 2023.
