The Suckling

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that forces you to redefine what movies are all about. Sometimes it just looks better than everything else on the market. Sometimes it's just acted better that a lot of other movies in its genre. And sometimes it's just so different that it defies comparison to anything else. There are plenty of movies that live up to the hype and prove themselves, in retrospective articles for years to come, to be the pinnacle of film. Unfortunately, this is not it at all.

The Suckling starts off with one of the worst openings ever that has been used too many times before: The prologue for the movie reveals how many people survive! What is the point of that? I mean, in a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's still irritating but its placement was so that the movie retained a documentary feel. Here, it is completely pointless and ruins any surprise you may have if you pay attention.

Regardless of that, the movie begins and seems interesting enough. Sure, the acting is terrible and the filming isn't the greatest, but the story has to do with a woman being tricked by her boyfriend and some sweet drugs into getting an abortion. That's cool! The aborted fetus itself doesn't look too bad, and we get some shots of it growing eyes and nails. Soon, it begins killing people, and that's magnificent.

Unfortunately, too much of the film is bogged down by boring moments. As I've said in other reviews, most of the fun of watching a B-Movie like this is to talk about the scenes to your friends later. But there isn't much to talk about here. It's like my complaint with Bubba Ho-Tep: there was so much they could have done with this concept but they totally wasted it. If I were to do this movie, I would have had some Abortion Police come in, armed with coathangers! Instead, this is basically just like every other slasher or monster film we've seen before, except with characters you don't care about (a businessman who says "whore" a lot, a CRAZY guy who is SO CRAZY that there is no gun shot sound effect when he fires his gun, a horrible boyfriend to the main character, a bunch of prostitutes, etc).

Just not really that enjoyable and surprisingly mean-spirited. And what's up with the ending with the skeleton, the guy, and the boy?!

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.

well. you may guess I was being sarcastic. This is probably the worst film I have ever seen. Sewage Baby is ridicule in its purest form, with awful plot, inconsistent characters, poor editing and a puppet that could have come straight from a cereal packet.. in fact I think it did. oh dear, I don't feel I will recommend this film to anyone but those with a very odd sense of humour, or those who really have no idea about film. Vaguely good idea, yet fails to take off in the slightest. I hope you are not one of those actors...

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!

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.....