Suitable Flesh: Movie Review

Cast: Heather Graham, Bruce Davison, Judah Lewis, Barbara Crampton

Director: Joe Lynch

Intentionally OTT and perhaps appallingly and deliberately bad in places, Suitable Flesh gorges itself on its sensibilities and doesn't hold back from playing to its audience.

Graham plays psychiatrist Elizabeth Derby who becomes obsessed with helping a young patient who shows up on her doorstep one day. But becoming uncomfortably obsessed with him, she finds herself drawn into a clash between the occult and her own professional ethics.

There's a large side of trashiness that comes with Suitable Flesh, and a fair amount of the kind of psycho-sexual exploitation films that used to form parts of the 80s VHS fare; but the film also benefits from doing this knowingly and with a wink to the audience throughout.

Graham is eminently watchable as the woman whose life and profession have hit a rut and who's excited by the possibility of something different. Yes she embraces its erotic thriller intentions and does so gleefully, even papering over cracks in the film (why is her husband always shirtless being one) to maximum effect.

It may be tongue-in-cheek and may feel like an occult film that could have been made after the likes of Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence rose to prominence, but its identity swapping excesses prove to be watchable enough fare - if you're in the right frame of mind.

Suitable Flesh is playing the Terror-Fi Film Festival