Every once in a while, a movie comes along that forces you to redefine what movies are all about. Sometimes it just looks better than everything else on the market. Sometimes it's just acted better that a lot of other movies in its genre. And sometimes it's just so different that it defies comparison to anything else. There are plenty of movies that live up to the hype and prove themselves, in retrospective articles for years to come, to be the pinnacle of film. Unfortunately, this is not it at all.
The Suckling starts off with one of the worst openings ever that has been used too many times before: The prologue for the movie reveals how many people survive! What is the point of that? I mean, in a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's still irritating but its placement was so that the movie retained a documentary feel. Here, it is completely pointless and ruins any surprise you may have if you pay attention.
Regardless of that, the movie begins and seems interesting enough. Sure, the acting is terrible and the filming isn't the greatest, but the story has to do with a woman being tricked by her boyfriend and some sweet drugs into getting an abortion. That's cool! The aborted fetus itself doesn't look too bad, and we get some shots of it growing eyes and nails. Soon, it begins killing people, and that's magnificent.
Unfortunately, too much of the film is bogged down by boring moments. As I've said in other reviews, most of the fun of watching a B-Movie like this is to talk about the scenes to your friends later. But there isn't much to talk about here. It's like my complaint with Bubba Ho-Tep: there was so much they could have done with this concept but they totally wasted it. If I were to do this movie, I would have had some Abortion Police come in, armed with coathangers! Instead, this is basically just like every other slasher or monster film we've seen before, except with characters you don't care about (a businessman who says "whore" a lot, a CRAZY guy who is SO CRAZY that there is no gun shot sound effect when he fires his gun, a horrible boyfriend to the main character, a bunch of prostitutes, etc).
Just not really that enjoyable and surprisingly mean-spirited. And what's up with the ending with the skeleton, the guy, and the boy?!
