With a premise that skirts the line of bad taste and an unserious tone, this could've been a dopey flick in the spirit of Troma movies but instead is more of a cheap monster movie. In fact, I wish this were in Troma's hands as it probably would've turned out a lot more entertaining and done more with the idea than this did.

The Suckling is a pretty lame low-budgeter that has a young couple heading off to a brothel for a "backroom" abortion but everyone in the house starts to get killed off when the fetus is flushed into the toilet and mutates into a nasty, clawed creature after being splashed with toxic waste. They also can't escape the house as the doors won't open, the windows are covered in some sort of membrane, and even the phones aren't working.

In between dull scenes of the cast arguing (made unconvincing by the amateurish acting) they've scattered in a few sparse attack scenes and while the monster effects are really not that bad (in fact I suspect most of the budget was spent on them) the movie just can't deliver on its tastelessness potential as it's not nearly as offensively funny or raunchy as it could've been.

There's a few scenes here and there that almost pull it off (like the owner of the brothel hanging her coat on the flesh-encrusted coat hanger she just used and the closing scene in the asylum), but it's almost like the makers of The Suckling were too afraid to take it to the next level of disgusting. And that's really too bad because the only way this movie would've worked was as an absurd and chaotic sleaze-a-thon.

It's nice to see such an obscure horror flick being released by Elite Entertainment, but I wish they'd be a little more picky with their choices as the only people who'll end up renting this are people tricked by the DVD cover and I'm not sure that anyone will really "enjoy" it...

Visit Elite Entertainment for more info. (Chris Hartley, 6/06/05)

Directed By: Francis Teri.
Written By: Not Credited.

Starring: Frank Reeves, Marie Michaels, Gerald Preger, Michael Logan.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: I suppose Elite did the best they could with the source material (it is over ten years old and made with not much money) but the print here is pretty murky with grain scattered throughout and a general fuzziness to the picture.

Extras: All we get here is a trailer that makes it look more excitingly "cheesy" than it is.