The Thingy: Confessions of a Teenage Placenta (AKA The Miracle of Life) is proof that I will watch absolutely anything. It's definitely one of the weirdest movies to be released by Troma, and that's saying something.
Starting as it means to go on (in full-on bonkers mode), the film opens with a female body builder Marianne (played a man, Pascal Maetens) giving birth in the gym. For some reason I can't quite fathom, the baby is put in a plastic bag and discarded, and the placenta is presented to the proud mother, who promptly holds the fleshy protein sac to her breast for feeding. So far, so freaky.
Years pass, and the placenta, named Luke, attends school, but finds it hard to fit in with his peers. As a teenager, he develops an interest in the opposite sex, falling for classmate Rihanna (Sofie Hoflack). When a date with the girl doesn't go as he had hoped, Marianne hires a prostitute, Angie (Celine Verbeeck), to satisfy her son's carnal urges (she strokes his umbilical cord), after which (again for reasons I cannot fathom) Luke takes a gun and goes on a killing spree.
Even more bizarre than the title suggests, The Thingy throws up one 'WTF?' moment after another, making it a genuine one-of-a-kind experience: Marianne only exercises one arm, the right bulging with muscles, the left comparatively skinny; in one scene, the fish on Marianne's wallpaper momentarily come to life and swim about; another freakish moment sees Marianne breastfeeding the pet dog; and there's a brief, trippy animated sequence that bears no relation to the rest of the film.
As far as the central character is concerned, Luke the Placenta is a rubbery blob with very little movement, a creation that makes Belial from Basket Case look like a marvel of special effects by comparison; however, one can't help but feel for the little guy, at least until he goes on his bloody rampage, shooting his mother and seven defenceless infants in a maternity ward. Naughty Luke!
The film closes with Luke confiding in his priest godfather Julio (Karel Vingerhoets), who cooks his godson and eats him—a demented finish to a thoroughly messed up movie.
5/10—difficult to recommend to most movie fans but unmissable for those who deliberately seek out cinematic oddities.
