“The unconsenting girl is drugged, her baby aborted and the fetus flushed down the toilet. The baby, exposed to toxic waste, regenerates and transforms into a very vengeful mutant. Using its umbilical cord as a deadly tentacle and its razor sharp arms as claw-like weapons, the mutant begins to wreak absolute chaos. It transforms the [whore]house into a womb-like cocoon, surrounded by an airtight mucus membrane, from which there is no escape.”
--excerpt from the packaging synopsis for Elite Entertainment’s DVD of The Suckling.

“Christ Jesus,” I thought upon receiving this. It sounded too good to be true. I mean in my demented mind at least, “abortion + toxic waste” clearly equals entertainment, and a killer mutant fetus attacking a whorehouse, I figured, definitely wasn't going to lessen the fun factor. So I quickly shielded myself from disappointment: I lowered my expectations drastically, then feverishly popped in my little silver disk. 90 minutes later, I shut off my TV a happy man. While The Suckling certainly wasn’t as good as I originally expected it to be (though methinks that would be impossible), it’s definitely a fine slice of cinematic cheese that’s well-worth its asking price.

Anyway, I’ll catch you up on what my quote didn’t already tell you. Suckling concerns a young couple whose youthful indiscretions have led to an unwanted bun in the oven. Trying to be proactive, the man of the pair talks his girlfriend into taking a trip with him to a seedy whorehouse, where he attempts to convince her to get a discount abortion from the house’s hefty madam, Big Mama. Being a nice enough girl, she obliges her boyfriend with a visit to the woman; however, she really has no intention of actually going through the procedure. Turns out that Big Mama has other plans, though, as the girl is soon drugged and her baby aborted, then flushed down a toilet.

Down in the sewers (or, more accurately, the rather amusing mock-up of a sewer), the baby is showered with drippings from a toxic waste barrel that has apparently been dumped next to the whorehouse (because we all know whorehouses are common dumping grounds of toxic waste). Before you know it, the little tike is sprouting claws and gaining a very nasty disposition to boot. Understandably angry about being aborted, the thing scuttles back up the drainage pipe whence it came and promptly decapitates one of the hookers using, of all things, the rim of a toilet!

After taking just a little too long to figure out that they’re under assault, our ragtag group of hookers, johns, teenage couple and Big Mama finally decides to leave the accursed bordello, only to find that...it's trapped inside by an impenetrable membrane (don’t you hate it when that happens?). Anyway, from there, things go from bad to worse as the killer kiddie starts picking off our heroes one by one while they spend most of their time bickering, devising battering rams to try to break through the cocoon, and traveling down to the beastie’s layer in the basement to try to do it in with a handgun (needless to say this goes rather poorly).

So, who will survive this terrifying ordeal? It’s really not much of a mystery, since the film is constructed in a flashback structure that explicitly tells the viewer in the first 5 minutes who lives through the attack. This isn’t its only problem, either. While the beginning and the end work fairly well, the movie does lag a little in the middle, when things bog down in extended dialogue and argument scenes that are pretty much solely confined to a living room. The film is also a little schizophrenic in its tone at times, too; some scenes are complete and straightforward horror, whereas others are completely goofy slapstick comedy (an early scene between a hooker and a john involving strap-on sodomy and a wildly rotating beanie cap being a prime example), while most of the rest of the film is kind of a kitschy cocktail of its comic and horrific elements.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Suckling despite these shortcomings; after all, who wouldn’t have been expecting them anyway? I mean, so what if the whole thing is a bit of a rip off of Alien, and so what if it’s a little rough around the edges? The Suckling nevertheless delivers exactly what you’d want it to. It’s got some surprisingly well-done creature effects; cheesy gore; even cheesier stop-motion shots; weird sex practices; aborted fetuses being doused in toxic waste; sexy, ax-wielding nurses; a couple of laughs; a few good scares; and a surprisingly offensive undercurrent when you stop to think about it. All in all, in my opinion at least, it’s a good time--nothing more and nothing less.

Yanking this little gem from somewhere (seriously, where did this come from? I was completely blindsided...), Elite Entertainment presents The Suckling in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen on its new DVD. The image isn’t jaw-dropping or anything, but I found it more than acceptable in my opinion, as was the audio. Extras are limited to a rather lame trailer, and, while I would have liked to learn a little (anything!) about the background of the production, I’m willing to live with what I’ve got here.

Well, on my way out, I suppose I’ll ‘fess up: following my viewing of the film, I spent a little time poking around online to see if I could find any other reactions. What I saw was rather uniform displeasure occasionally bordering on vitriol. I’ve got to say I don’t really understand it. I found The Suckling to be a rather entertaining 89 minute diversion. Is it great art? Of course not. Great filmmaking even? No...still not really. Nevertheless, it’s a rather entertaining beer-and-pretzels kinda flick that I think is really pretty entertaining if you’re in the right mood. With that in mind, I think it just might be due for a re-appraisal, so thank you, Elite, for giving this cheesy little monster flick a second chance.