Spoilers think we’re just collecting bad horror movies now.

I don’t know why but it seems every time I discover a H. P. Lovecraft adaptation, it either fails at hitting the mark or is simply appears to be trying to go in a completely different direction. It is no coincidence that the WGA strike happened and a lot of lousy and formulaic features got the greenlight. This film does feel like a misstep that could have just drop all pretense and did what it wanted, but I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out what that was.

(Credit: RLJE Films)

Suitable Flesh (2023) was directed by Joe Lynch and written by Dennis Paoli. It is loosely inspired on the short story “The Thing on the Doorstep” by H. P. Lovecraft. Dr. Danielle Upton (Barbara Crampton) is examining a mutilated corpse enters the morgue where she works at and a former psychiatrist is being committed. This happens to be Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham), a former classmate of Dr. Upton’s at Miskatonic university. As we begin the story years earlier, Dr. Derby is taking in a patient named Asa Waite (Judah Lewis) with an interesting case of multiple personality.

As the cast dynamics go, we’re keeping the main cast dynamics except the genders have been switched. However, we’re not here to judge how close the movie comes to the original work. I will say this does not contain a single drop of Lovecraftian horror (or hardly any error at all). It feels closer to sort of a softcore erotic thriller, with several lovemaking scenes that are hardly called for. There’s also barely a believable performance to speak of, so much so that I kept wondering if this was some sort of a comedic parody or I had stumbled on a late night skin flick instead.

It doesn’t work. I kept wishing the movie would stumble into the very mythical unintentional comedy where things are “so bad it’s good”, but it doesn’t. I am only guessing it’s trying to keep the same references to Arkham and Miskatonic for clout with fans of Lovecraftian but I’d rather it choose which genre it wants to be. The ending is expected and you’ll see it coming from the very start but it’s no less messy.

Not recommended. It’s not that it’s a bad or good adaptation, it’s just a bad movie. The horror in it is thinner than generic and the constant tonal shift makes it feel cheap. I don’t see an audience for it, not even in the campy horror genre as it has little to nothing in entertainment value. Not worth a watch unless you want to see how bad it gets, and it even gets dull at doing that.

That will do for now.