The Suckling



AKA: Sewage Baby

A pregnant young woman is dragged to an illegal abortion clinic/rundown brothel by the baby’s not-so-proud papa. She doesn’t want to be there, but reluctantly goes inside with the intent to just “talk” about the procedure. But one non-consensual drugging later and her fetus is removed and dumped into the sewer system. But unbeknownst to anyone inside, there seems to be a toxic run-off issue down in the pipes and the aborted baby quickly mutates into a deformed monster. Clearly not happy about its unfortunate circumstances, the mutated creature proceeds to take its frustrations out on the people inside the brothel, trapping everyone inside and slowly picking them off one by one.


And here’s your friendly neighborhood monster doing his best Kool Aid Man impression. Oh YEAH!

I think I might be slightly cheating with my self imposed “Killer Kids” theme for the month, because in this movie the “child” in question actually qualifies as a monster. But I figured since the monster was technically a baby at some point then — fuck it — close enough. Not that it matters though, since being a child or not doesn’t really affect the overall story, which is clearly heavily inspired by Aliens, just with a plot that ‘s a bit more ‘down to Earth.’ Not that the plot itself is anything to write home about either, because it’s very clear early on that the movie is a cheap, independently funded piece of exploitation cinema, and goodness knows that people don’t watch those for their deep or thought provoking plotlines. I will admit though, there is at least a hint of a good idea to be found in here. Hell, there are even a couple of good ideas. It’s just that it gets so marred down by the cheapness and overall ineptitude that all the good ideas in the world probably weren’t going to help it.



For sleaze and gore fans, the story shows almost immediate promise: You’ve got a guy and his girl go to a (decrepit, rundown, shabby-shack, I think the building was probably condemned) house of ill-repute. *insert awkward, cheesy, kinky sex-scene between a worker and one of her clients here* The boyfriend wants his gal pal to have an abortion, but she’s not really on board with that. So she’s drugged and forced to have one anyway. One coat-hanger later and the fetus is flushed down the toilet. For some reason, the whore-house has a barrel of toxic waste just laying around in the backyard and, wouldn’t you know it, it just happens to be leaking into the sewer system. The flushed fetus interacts with the radioactive goop and begins to mutate. The baby transforms into a giant monster with googly eyes. Despite being a good 6ft tall, Monsieur Googly Eyes is also apparently an invertebrate and can squeeze into and travel through the plumbing system. It then proceeds to cut off all the access points to the building and kill everyone inside by popping into and out of toilets and sinks.





Seriously, none of that is an exaggeration. That’s it. THAT’S the plot of this movie. And yes, it’s absolutely as stupid and ridiculous as it sounds. Like, it’s just some of the most gloriously dumb shit I’ve ever encountered, and honestly, for a while, believe it or not, it actually works. Because they throw all of this on you for the first third of the film and that, along with the equally ridiculous ending, is all so silly that you really can’t help but laugh at most of it. So it’s truly unfortunate that it’s only after this point that things start to go downhill, because it quickly becomes apparent after the film’s introduction that the filmmakers either used up most of their ideas, or that they really hadn’t thought through the rest of the plot beyond that point. Because after the first half hour or so, the movie quickly devolves into a lot of painfully dull, plodding horror staples, like having people sitting around and arguing or — everyone’s personal favorite — having people meander around in the dark…slowly. Hurray. Occasionally the monster does pop in to kill someone to remind us it’s still there, but that is sadly not enough to keep the majority of the film from feeling like a total slog. So even though the film does manage to start and end remarkably strong, the overall plot ends up being wildly disappointing.



And of course beyond the plodding story, the film is also filled with everything else you’d expect from a cheaply made exploitation flick. The effects? EXTREME budget level. The coolest part is the transformation scene in the beginning, but after that things go downhill fast. We’re talking fake spiderwebs and creepy, torn Halloween cloth levels of cheap. So don’t expect much. The acting? Generally awful and clearly filled with people who don’t typically act, though there are a couple of people who don’t outright suck. The picture quality? Terrible. Most of it looks like the film stock accidentally had a can of beer spilled on it and no one bothered to clean it up. The sound? Painful and often confusing. The soundtrack is grating (unless you like synth.) People are dubbed, and often quite poorly. Which makes me wonder how awful the readings of the lines originally were if the horrible dubbing was somehow an improvement. In fact the sound is often so bad sometimes that the sounds are frequently out of sync with what’s happening on screen. And that’s assuming there IS sound, because sometimes the sound will just drop out completely into dead silence with no rhyme or reason. It’s truly bizarre. And the less said about the dialogue the better, because that is just amazingly cringe-worthy. I get the feeling that they were probably going for humor in a couple scenes, and there are a couple of things that are so genuinely stupid that they are funny but most of it is….no. Just no.


Okay, so there may be a couple of other cool bits in between, but other than that…

So, despite starting off really well and setting itself up to be a royally stupid, though amusing, piece of schlock, to my utter disappointment The Suckling quickly abandons that promising thread and devolves into “let us all slowly plod around in the dark” levels of tedium. *enter groan of frustration here* So..much…wasted.…potential. But, oh well. I will give the filmmakers an “A” for effort though. Because even though this is obviously a cheap-y flick, it’s also clear that it was a passion project. So good on them for getting it made, I guess. It’s just too bad that a good 70% of the story is a real slog to sit through, and will likely leave most viewers sitting there staring at their clocks in the vain hope of making time move faster…or to at least have the monster show up (though it probably won’t). So if you’re the type of person who has enough patience to sit through long stretches of story where very little happens just so you can get to the (few) good parts of the film, then I can confirm that The Suckling does have some stupidly amusing moments. But if you’re not then you can probably skip this…. Unless you’re an exploitation fan. Then I’d suggest watching the first 30-minutes and then planting your finger on the fast-forward button so you can get the highlight reel. That’ll work just as well.

The Suckling is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Suckling is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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