The Suckling (1990)

Director: Francis Teri

Starring: Frank Rivera, Marie Michaels, Gerald Preger, Lisa Petruno, Janet Sovey, Tim Martin Crouse, Susan Brodsky, Allen Lieb

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ...all he wanted was a cuddle

Plot: A woman goes to a back alley abortion clinic, only to have her aborted fetus attack her, her boyfriend, and everyone else at the clinic.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Maybe but not likely.

This is one fucked up awesome movie except... First off, the simple premise is great (a young woman has a back-alley abortion located in a whorehouse, the fetus is flushed down the toilet to end up in the sewer next to some toxic waste, mutates and goes back to kill everyone in the whorehouse!!!) and the special effects (by Dean Mercil) are fucking fantastic!





That's where the greatness ends. The acting as OK at best (hey, it's a super low budget movie, what do you expect, right?). Joseph Teri's score is mostly piano and some really bland synthesizer and it's sadly lacking. Hell, there are lots of places where there is no music and it suffers from it, but then the music it has rarely works so what do you do? I can't say enough about the special effects. They're really top notch. There's even a brief scene with some stop motion. Any movie that makes the effort for stop motion gets major points in my book.


It's funny because there are moments that made me think of Frank Henenlotter's classic, BASKET CASE (1982), which clearly inspired this picture. Writer/director Francis Teri did an admirable job but the limitations of money and talent keeps THE SUCKLING from being a bona fide MUST WATCH in my book. My mind goes crazy thinking of what this could have been like if Henenlotter had taken the wheel. I wouldn't be surprised if it stood toe to toe with BASKET CASE and another one of my favorites of his, FRANKENHOOKER (1990). It would have been nice to see what else Francis Teri had up is sleeve but sadly this is his only picture but what a picture it is (or could have been).