The Suckling (1990)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Best movie of this year hands down!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Like others have stated, in England this went by the far better title of Sewage Baby. That was a better name because it had that certain special ring to it that any lover of eighties creature features would have found simply irresistible, whereas The Suckling, was just kinda dull. A movie about a poor unfairly aborted baby that gets callously flushed and then returns as a hideous slavering mutant slaughtering its way through hookers and lowlifes hellbent on returning to its mother-what the hell could be wrong with that? A lot!!! After a moderately moody opening and what I found to be an impressively gruesome sequence where the Sewage Baby is "born" everything goes downhill fast in a major way. It doesn't work. Nothing does. If you'll forgive my crudeness, watching this is like watching s**t slide down a wall for eighty minutes... It's so boring! Between the ridiculously gaping-jawed monster bursting out of walls and lashing out of toilets, there's a whole lot of nothing going on with only non-likable ugly bickering jerks to look at. I believe that it's the considerable bore factor that kills this movie. You can forgive monstrous acting effects and possibly plot, but to be boring is the very worst thing a film can ever be. Nowadays it's not really known of at all, and that's not a tragedy, trust me-it's a mercy! :::2::: The toilet of doom... I once found a scene in this film so scary, that it actually rendered me afraid to go to the bathroom-yep, I thought the Sewage Baby was gonna leap out of the bog and get me! It was the scene where the black chick gets her head ripped off. When I look at it now it's dumb. You don't see anything, just kind of a tentacle whipping out and you don't even see the head come off, it's just suddenly stuck in there, while the other lady hilariously blurts out her line:"Bertha!" I was only seven at the time by the way, you understand...: The thing being flushed and mutating via handy toxic waste angle is reminiscent of the opening of the 1980 classic Alligator. That was the only part I liked in this whole dang thing. I liked the humorous cliché of a coat hanger being used as an abortion instrument. The outrageous climactic scene where the monster "returns to mummy" is especially laughable. As it stomps up to her and somehow shrinks back into a regular sized baby thing that looks as if it's made out of silly putty, you can actually see the strings! And the final scene of the movie after that is still poor, but also surprisingly grim, with the girl in a rotten loony-bin, being abused by wardens. At least she'll always have her little "Suckling" to protect her! :::3::: It would've turned out awesome if Frank Henenlotter had been at the helm. In his more than capable hands, I'm sure this would have been a "cult classic". I don't like that term, I don't like the word cult-is everyone that loves certain horror movies from various decades-mostly eighties- supposed to wear sinister cloaks and chant and watch them by candlelight or what? Why don't they just call them what they are, POPULAR! But no, because it's horror it's gotta have some stigmatising word attached to it just to smooth everything over for the people who to this day, just don't get it. F*****g stupid label word. I hope nobody ever lumps this effort with Frank's movies. Because although they might be considered of this type of grungy schlocky monster flicks, his films have a grim quality and fruity flair to them, and fairly well-acted colourful characters that compensate well for any perceived poor qualities. Also, not one of his movies could ever be called boring, whereas this film is just a plain and empty joyless waste. Only watch if you wish to see something truly trashy and brainless that may give you one or two cheap laughs purely because it is so bad. It's the celebrated cult horror that never was. As it stank. Just a terrible movie-abort it!

This movie is phenomenally well-done. I was skeptical at first, but my friend Bernard convinced me to watch this film. Not only is the dialogue beyond anything I've ever seen, the scenery is gorgeous. This movie was enjoyable from beginning to end. The twists and turns and complications in the plot made it all the more worthwhile. The depth that went into making this masterpiece is unheard of(and I mean that in the best way possible, of course!) I loved the character development, especially of the mother and the fetus. I heard this movie was low budget, but you would NEVER know it. Whoever was in charge of the budget did a first class job, grade A, really. My only complaint was that it was too short! LOVED IT!

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?!

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...