The Suckling

A 2?! Oh c'mon. It deserves at least a 6 for the baby effects alone, which are pretty good for such a low budget film. First of all disregard the box comments that seem to compare it to die hard or alien because its the furthest thing from that. Look at more as an above average Troma film, which is probably who should have released it in the first place. My quest to see the movie began at a flea market in Wallingford , CT where I saw a guy selling the suckling press kit with a badass "only could have been made in the 90's" T-shirt. It looked Like an all yellow local metal band shirt. I laughed and had a look and new I had to see the film. The press kit came with a small poster on which someone had written a note in marker on the back. It says" Mike, See you Friday aug. 23 midnight bleecker theatre if possible. If not there'll be bigger + better movies next. Pete." I don't know if the suckling was a CT made film, since the company who made it, JER Pictures has a Port Chester , NY address. Either way its pretty funny, or appropriate depending on your thoughts, that the poster hangs directly above my toilet. I say we need to bring on The Suckling 2: Keep on Suckling.

Sometimes, fun and blood go together. THE SUCKLING is under that rule. The plot is, of course, of clase B-films and so the FX and the actors. But the result is really funny: a little creature takes a house and its inhabitants and moves misteriously around it. The final scene is one of the more bizarre shots I have ever seen.

A young girl has an illegal abortion in a house of ill-repute. The foetus is flushed down the toilet and into the sewer where, nurtured by pollution and goodness-knows-what, it survives, harbouring a grudge and glowing greenly. It then sets about popping up out of the toilets and picking off one-by-one all those responsible for its sorry fate. It is aided by the fact that all those involved are the kind of people who - on being told that there is something in the bathroom making a noise like the devil incarnate - proceed to shove their heads down the pan for a really good look.

Well, I first saw this on video in the early 90's when it was on release in the UK as "Sewage Baby", and it was so awful that I have never forgotten it. There was a kernel of a good idea here, but it was made with such technical ineptitude that even the folks at MST3K would only have been able to watch in gob-smacked silence. The photography is dire. The sound appalling- there are silent gun shots, footsteps that suddenly disappear halfway down a flight of stairs and then suddenly start again. Some of the cast are obviously actors, some are just as obviously not. The special effects are of the "let's have a Halloween party in the garage" school, with lots of atmospheric net curtains. After my sides stopped aching with laughter and my jaw returned to its normal position, I was left with many unanswered questions, like; Who ARE these people? How ever did they manage to get the money and film stock to make this movie? And how on earth did they manage to get it released? If anyone knows the answers - please tell me.....

THE SUCKLING opens with a rather bizarre nightmare sequence, followed by a woman and her boyfriend showing up at a combination brothel / abortion "clinic", where they meet several unsavory characters including the utterly odious "Big Mama".

Next, we witness a procedure gone horribly awry. The -obviously rubber- "fetus" is disposed of down the old porcelain receptacle, which is a possible health violation! After a tour of the sewer system, the "fetus" is exposed to some -conveniently placed- toxic waste. This causes an unholy resurrection, and the grotesque / absurd creature springs to life! The transformation scene is a disgusting wonder of ultra-schlock filmmaking!

The action switches back to Big Mama's place, wherein any further exposition is meant only to enhance the wretchedness of those who will soon meet their gruesome, collective doom. Whenever the hateful humans are busy NOT being killed, they blather on for intolerably long periods of time- 80-90% of the movie!

The titular mini-monster, which does grow to giant size, is only seen sporadically. Even then, it's far from spectacular. Making matters worse, any scenes without the creature are simply excruciating! Things pick up a bit by the final 20 minutes or so, but by then, viewers are most likely praying for death.

Heed the warning!...

The Suckling is one of my favourite trashy films for many reasons. For a trashy movie it more than delivers the goods. Scenes such as the topless axe-wielding nurse, the aborted foetus sliding into the sewers and then mutating into a monster - these images will be burnt into my brain forever! Never will you see such images again in a film. The dialogue and acting is terrible but hilarious too. A few quotes: "You wouldn't know bullshit if you were standing under a bull!", "A man comes in to get his penis sucked, and gets shot off instead". The most hilarious scene is when the monster shrinks back down to foetus size - making a "ga-ga" sound - and crawls back into his mothers womb. Priceless! The Suckling is pure trashy entertainment at its best and I would recommend it to all horror b-movie fans. Ignore what everyone else has said - it's not THAT bad. Also - people continually knock the musical score, what's with that?! The opening piano music sounds so dark and haunting and fits a horror theme perfectly. I would even say that it belongs in a better film than this (by that I mean a serious horror film) because it's perfect!