Of the horror filmmakers to emerge out of the 2000s, Joe Lynch has never gotten the level of exposure of his contemporaries. The mainstream notoriety of Eli Roth and Rob Zombie or the critical respect of Ti West or Lucky McKee have eluded him. His “Wrong Turn” sequel got the attention of slasher sickos and “Mayhem” was well received by the Shudder crowd. But “Knights of Badassdom” and “Chillerama” were fiascos. (I liked “Everly” but I don't think it was widely seen.) This year, Lynch has come the closest to attracting both cult acclaim and glowing reviews with “Suitable Flesh.” A very loose adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's “The Thing on the Doorstep,” the film is largely a homage to the Lovecraft adaptations of Stuart Gordon. This is most evident in Barbara Crampton appearing in a supporting role, directly connecting this film to the likes of “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond.”
Dr. Elizabeth Derby has ended up in a mental institution, raving about being pursued. Her close friend, Dr. Daniella Upton, attempts to figure out what brought Derby to this place. A psychiatrist, Derby began impulsively seeing a young man named Asa Waite. Waite claims his elderly father is abusing him and seems to have split personalities, triggered by violent seizures. The boy fascinates Elizabeth and she soon begins a love affair with him, unbeknownst to her dim husband. During sex with Asa, Elizabeth experiences swapping bodies with the boy. She soon realizes that Asa's perverse, manipulative father is a sorcerer who has discovered a way to swap his soul into different bodies. Elizabeth soon finds herself trapped in Asa's body, while the villainous Waite patriarch conspires to take over the doctor's life.
By harkening back to a type of film so closely associated with the nineties, “Suitable Flesh” brings other cast-offs from that decade to mind. Despite the presence of Crampton and Steve Moore's score doing a decent job of aping Richard Band, this doesn't feel much like an Empire Pictures production. What it resembles instead are the films Stuart Gordon made for Full Moon a little while later, like “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “Castle Freak.” You see this in the limited sets, pointing towards the low budget, and the somewhat flat lighting. It looks like a direct-to-video, Charles Band production from the days when that actually meant something. There's no killer puppets or Romanian castles but Lynch does add a rubber monster of a sorts, that doesn't appear in Lovecraft's narrative. Moreover, the movie's dedication to giving the audience some flesh, some blood, and in an attractive and quick-paced package is what most captures the feel of Gordon and Band's best collaborations. And if you doubt its bonafides any further, Brian Yunza is a producer on this one.
If Stuart Gordon and his crew had made “Suitable Flesh” back in 1992, Barbara Crampton almost certainly would have starred. Instead, Crampton is in the part of the Lovecraftian narrator, the sane (wo)man who has to listen to her insane friend deliver a tale of sanity-shattering woe. Crampton butches it up with a lot of attitude, proving once again that she's one of those actors who can do anything with nothing. Heather Graham – who starred in a late occurring erotic thriller herself, though she passes the nudity clause onto a body double here – stars as Derby. Graham has a certain shakiness to her, an anxious shade to even her most committed moments, that makes her well-suited to someone swept up in a bizarre conspiracy. Judah Lewis as Asa is the film's real find, as he seamlessly leaps between different personalities, never letting the audience mistakes Asa's actual personality for his possessed side. Everyone does a good job of playing these variant characters. Even if a nicely over-the-top Bruce Davison was probably a replacement for Jeffrey Combs.
Of all the classic monster archetypes, it seems the vampire is the one most amendable to a queer reading. I am referring to, of course, the lesbian vampire subgenre. It's not too difficult to tell why this premise has proliferated so much over the years, after Sheridan le Fanu more-or-less introduced it with “Carmilla.” The vampire, feeding on the sleeping by sucking their blood from a bite in the neck, has an inherently sexual aspect to it that's been unavoidable for years. When the idea of girl-on-girl feeding arises, it adds even more titillation to the premise. One can't avoid certain tendencies in older ages to assign monstrous qualities to queer people, a concept which has been largely reclaimed by those in the LGBT+ community as a badge of mutual societal outersiderdom. But anyway, there's lots of lesbian and bisexual vampire movies out there. One such example is 1974's “Vampyres,” a cult favorite from Spanish director José Ramón Larraz.
Out in the English countryside, resides a stately but abandoned manor. Inside, dwell two mysterious women by the name of Fran and Miriam. The women often lure travelling motorists from the near-by road to the house, where they satisfy their sexual cravings with them... Before satisfying their hunger for blood, slashing their wrists and sucking the life out of them. Ted is one such victim, which Fran takes a particular liking too. (Even though Miriam is also her lover.) John and Harriet are two travelers who spot the girls from the road. Harriet finds herself strangely drawn to the pair and is soon sucked into their world of darkness, sex, and murder.
Naturally, if you remove the dream logic from a Rollin set-up, you'll basically be left with a porn film. Within seconds of “Vampyres” starting, we're treated to a girl-on-girl love scene. There's literally boobs in the third shot of the film. Marianne Morris and Anulka – Playboy Playmate of May 1973 – are often undressed, among the film's multiple, hairy, sweaty sex scenes. The lovemaking in “Vampyres” is especially mouthy. Ted thrusts his open mouth against Fran's, with lots of tongue action between all the partners. I can't help but feel this was intentional. These vampires seek to consume their victims. They notably don't have fangs. Instead, they cut the men open and suck their blood out the natural way. Late in the film, they lunge towards the camera, mouths agape, as if they are about to consume us too. “Vampyres” is clearly a film of such overwhelming passion that its characters can't help but shove their targets right into their mouths. Or maybe Larraz just had a vore kink, I don't know.
“Vampyres'” mix of casual eroticism, potent ideas, and oozing gothic ambiance would naturally make it a favorite of Eurohorror fans. Also unsurprising, the film would often be edited and censored by boards of decency around the globe. Luckily, us perverted Americans have had the uncut version right from the beginning. God bless America and exploitation film distributors. Anyway, “Vampyres” is pretty fun in its sleazy, atmospheric way. Larraz would direct several other notable genre films, even if he's not as well known as his fellow Eurohorror auteurs. Neither of its leading ladies did much other acting, though Marriane Morris was also appeared in the “Beasts” episode I just watched earlier in the month. Yeah, she was the naked girl in that too. [7/10]
Of all the versions of “The Twilight Zone” that I've watched over the years, the 2019, Jordan Peele hosted iteration seems to foreground social commentary and meta twists the most. Yet, even if it rarely lived up to expectations, the show did occasional grab a banger premise. “The Who of You,” from the second season, follows Harry Pine, an out-of-work actor who fears his girlfriend is going to leave him. Desperate after his apartment's power is turned off, he decides to rob the bank. While asking the clerk to hand over the cash, Harry's mind switches bodies with the woman. Shortly after that, he does the same with a cop on the scene. Realizing he's develop a supernatural ability, Harry uses it to escape the cops and hold onto the money. The schemes hits a snag after he leaves the cash in the shop of a sham psychic. The detective on the case, Reece, is slowly figuring out what's going on as well.
We've all wondered what it might be like to walk in someone else's shoes. “The Who of You” runs with this idea, Harry dropping into someone else's body just by looking them in the eyes. When you've suddenly turned to a life of crime, such a superpower also allows you to escape persecution easily. Probably the episode's best moment occurs when the cops start to question Harry, in a random jogger's body. He leaps across several people on a street, until he arrives in the body of an old man entering an apartment building. “The Who of You” doesn't get too deep into the mechanics of its set-up. Whenever Harry switches with someone, the stolen identity goes right back into his body as his mind goes into their's. I guess consciousness swapping across multiple persons, leaving a complex, “Futurama” style web of transferences in its path, might have been too much to ask of for a forty minute show.
That Harry never considers the ethical questions around such an ability, and immediately uses it to pursue his own goals, suggests he's not a very good person. Indeed, “The Who of You” almost plays like the origin story of a supervillain. Ethan Embry plays the guy not so much as someone at the end of his rope, as someone looking for an easy way out. (Embry does a good job of assuming the different body languages of whoever is possessing Harry's body at any time.) “The Twilight Zone” being what it is, you're expecting this to build towards an ending where the asshole gets what's coming to him. Instead, the episode includes a twist that the audience sees coming way before the characters in the episode do. It's a disappointing ending to an episode that, even if it lacked much in the way of social commentary or heady ideas, was at least an interesting idea executed in a fairly compelling manner. [6/10]
Super-8 film may be a totally outdated format to shoot a movie in. Yet the gritty, lo-fi quality brings a certain charm with it, that has been appreciated in a number of super-low budget, home-grown projects over the years. To the point that even more modern filmmakers have taken advantage of this quality. Such as “Viola Vs. the Vampire King,” a seven minute short shot in 2017 by filmmaker Kevin Fermini. The premise, summed up in the title, goes like so: Viola's sister has been taken by the Vampire King of Spider Web Forest. She heads into the forest, armed with a katana, to get revenge and rescued her sister. The vampire king proves harder to kill than that and Viola will have to seek out help if she hopes to complete this mission.
I tend to associate Super-8 with monster kids making wacky home movies in their backyard. I suspect Fermini has that association too, as “Viola Vs. the Vampire King” is clearly seeking to capture an unhinged, youthful energy. This is reflected in Viola's girly-girl dialogue and the short's loose plot, that feels like it could've been thought up on the spot. Most importantly, the film adopts a chaotic, highly stylized visual approach. There's colorful overlays over multiple scenes, like the kind of construction paper border you'd expect a kid to cut out. This is combined with some erratic editing and a trippy, reverberating score. Colorful lighting, clearly influenced by Bava, further adds to this highly exaggerated, comic book-like tone.
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