MY CALL: Folks, I love all things Lovecraftian from the wild adaptations of the 80s to more contemporary releases… and I really liked this movie. Gory, intense, boundary-pushing and insidious, it seems to capture the best of the 80s and the 2020s. MORE MOVIES LIKE Suitable Flesh: For more recent Lovecraft-adapted fare, consider Dagon (2001), Dreams in the Witch-House (2005), Cold Skin (2017) and The Color Out of Space (2019). For some clearly Lovecraft-inspired movies, move on to The Shrine (2010), Black Mountain Side (2014), Harbinger Down (2015), Baskin (2015), The Void (2016), The Beach House (2019), The Superdeep (2020) and Glorious (2022).
Dr. Beth Derby (Heather Graham; Scream 2, Blessed, From Hell) finds herself a patient in the Psych Ward of the Miskatonic Medical School, under the care of her friend and colleague Dr. Daniella Upton (Barbara Crampton; Re-Animator, From Beyond, You’re Next, Chopping Mall, We Are Still Here). From her padded room, Beth narrates the story that led her there…
It all began when she met college student Asa (Judah Lewis; The Babysitter, Summer of ‘84), a troubled young man tortured by a fear of his father and a recent out of body experience. His father (Bruce Davison; Lords of Salem, Insidious: The Last Key) is unwell, unfriendly, and studies an esoteric text with macabre illustrations enabling him to utter an incantation and possess the body of another against their will.
The body-swapping lunacy kicks into high gear during a carnal sex scene that transitions into a most brutal murder with an incredibly bloody and visceral-sounding decapitation. Ten or so rapid, brutally rough, trachea-grating cuts hastily and sloppily sever the victim’s head and, I gotta’ say, I am digging this! I loved the bloody mess of it all so much. There are only two really gory scenes in the entire film—both are well-executed, spectacularly bloody, rather mean, gruesome and awesome. The second scene (actually a long sequence) involves a brutal fall, incredibly mean vehicular manslaughter, loads of stabbing, and it even continues rolling into an autopsy and then beyond. This mangled body is an amazing macabre sight, and we see a lot of it.
There is a highly sex-driven component to all this, and Beth’s husband Edward (Johnathon Schaech; Quarantine, Flight 7500, Prom Night) certainly seems to enjoy the ride. Sometimes the sex is just for the sake of evil lust, but at one point it facilitates a bodily possession. I guess just like how the body-swapping alien in The Hidden (1987) liked red sports cars, this demon likes… well… yeah.
Director Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2, Chillerama, Mayhem, Creepshow series) should be our new go-to Lovecraft director—at least, for the less high-brow fare. Adapted from the H. P. Lovecraft story “The Thing on the Doorstep” by writer Dennis Paoli (Dagon, From Beyond, Re-Animator, Meridian), I also hope this film spurs more projects for this writing-directing duo. Because this was good. Really good. Although not as wild as the Lovecraftian adaptations of the 80s (e.g., Re-Animator, From Beyond), this brings a more mature spin to the occasionally off-the-wall concepts of those movies while still retaining juuuuust enough over-the-topness to remain titillating. We need more movies like this!