The Suckling
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''The Suckling'' (also known as ''Sewage Baby'') is a 1990 American
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
directed by Francis Teri and starring Frank Rivera (under the pseudonym Frank Reeves), Marie Michaels, and
Michael Gingold Michael Gingold is an American journalist, screenwriter, and former editor-in-chief of ''Fangoria'' magazine. Career In his teen years, young horror fan Michael Gingold wrote and self-published the photocopied horror-review fanzine ''Scareaphana ...
.


Plot

On April 1, 1973 in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, a college student named Bill takes his pregnant girlfriend Rebecca to get an abortion at a seedy back-alley
abortion clinic An abortion clinic or abortion provider is a medical facility that provides abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers, private medical practices or nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood. Statistics Canada *There were ...
which also doubles as a
brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...
. Rebecca is reluctant to go through with the process, but before she can back out of it, she is rendered unconscious after drinking a drugged liquid given to her by Big Mama, the woman running the establishment. After removing the fetus, Big Mama gets her assistant Bertha to dispose of it by flushing it down the toilet. The fetus winds up in the sewer and comes into contact with toxic waste being leaked from a nearby barrel, which gradually mutates it into a large, humanoid monster. After Rebecca regains consciousness, Bertha starts hearing noises coming from the toilet. When she goes to investigate, the fetus's tentacle bursts out and rips her head off. Candy, a prostitute, witnesses the murder, and hysterically runs off to inform the rest of the staff. They then discover that all the doors and windows have been blocked up with a strange, fleshy substance, and the phone lines are dead. After the survivors witness the monster killing another hooker in the building, they try to formulate a plan to escape. Sherman, the man in charge of the bordello, is later attacked by the monster, and Axel, Big Mama's son and a former prisoner with anger issues, inadvertedly shoots Sherman to death whilst trying to kill the creature. Axel then elects himself as the leader and shoots Candy in the head when she tries to talk back, before telling the remaining survivors that he wants them to kill the monster before they try and escape. On Bill's suggestion, he, Axel and a few other survivors head into the basement, believing the creature may be hiding in the boiler room. Their theory proves correct, but when Axel tries to kill the creature, he accidentally stabs a fuse box, which electrocutes him until his head explodes. Later, Bill and Rebecca manage to break a hole in the front door by tying a rope to a heavy suitcase and using it as a
battering ram A battering ram is a siege engine that originated in ancient times and was designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates. In its simplest form, a battering ram is just a large, heavy log carried ...
. When a survivor tries using it to escape, however, he finds himself in a strange, fleshy environment where the monster attacks and kills him. Eventually, Bill, Rebecca and Big Mama are left as the only remaining survivors. Big Mama goes into the basement to see her son's corpse, and the creature appears and kills her before bursting into the lobby and killing Bill. With Rebecca as the only one still alive, the monster reverts to the size of a regular fetus before forcing its way inside of her through her vagina. When the police are brought to investigate the building, they find Rebecca alive, but in a coma. About a week later, Rebecca, still catatonic, has been taken to a psych ward in a hospital. The doctors and police officers are skeptical of her claims, but when a hospital attendant tries to rape her, the creature bursts out of Rebecca and kills him.


Cast

* Lisa Petruno as Rebecca * Tim Martin Crouse as Bill * Frank Rivera as Axel * Janet Sovey as Big Mama * Marie Michaels as Candy * Gerald Preger as Sherman * Susan Brodsky as Sheryl * Antoinette Greene as Bertha * Brian Muirhill as Customer * Jeff Burchfield as Police Officer * Bobby Shapiro as Doctor #1 * Allen Lieb as Doctor #2 * Alley Ninestein as Nurse *
Michael Gingold Michael Gingold is an American journalist, screenwriter, and former editor-in-chief of ''Fangoria'' magazine. Career In his teen years, young horror fan Michael Gingold wrote and self-published the photocopied horror-review fanzine ''Scareaphana ...
as The Suckling


Reception

John Squires of ''
Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American independent multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news website specializing in information services that covered various horror media. The company expanded into other media including podcast ...
'' referred to the film as an example of a "
best worst movie ''Best Worst Movie'' is a 2009 American documentary film about the making of the infamous 1990 horror film ''Troll 2'' and its subsequent resurgence as a cult film. Directed by Michael Stephenson, the child star of ''Troll 2'', the film was dis ...
", and wrote that it is "home to all the terrible acting and weird storytelling choices that make bad movies so much fun to watch. This movie has it all, and it’s highlighted by surprisingly good creature effects that outshine absolutely everything else on display in it." Matt Hudson of HorrorNews.net gave the film a negative review, criticizing the film's low budget, acting, and script.


Home media

''The Suckling'' was released for on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
by Elite on May 10, 2005. It was later released by Films Around World on August 28, 2018. The film was first released on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on March 26, 2019, by
Vinegar Syndrome Vinegar Syndrome is an American home video distribution company which specializes in "protecting and preserving genre films". The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore ...
.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Suckling, The 1990 films 1990s monster movies 1990 horror films American monster movies American films about revenge Giant monster films Films about abortion in the United States American science fiction horror films 1990s science fiction horror films American splatter films 1990s English-language films 1980s English-language films 1990s American films 1990 science fiction films English-language science fiction horror films