Suitable Flesh

Psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Derby begins to helps a young patient Asa, who has an extreme personality disorder. She digs further into the situation, and realizes there is something dark and supernatural at play with the patient.[2]

• Heather Graham as Elizabeth Derby, a psychiatrist[3]
• Judah Lewis as Asa, Elizabeth's patient[3]
• Bruce Davison as Ephraim, Asa's father[4]
• Johnathon Schaech as Edward, Elizabeth's husband
• Barbara Crampton as Daniella, Elizabeth's friend and colleague[4]
• Graham Skipper as a hospital morgue attendant[4]
• Jonah Ray[3]

Suitable Flesh was directed by Joe Lynch from a script by Dennis Paoli, which is based on H. P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep (1937).[3] Barbara Crampton stars in the film and produces under her Alliance Media Partners banner.[5] Principal photography began in Jackson, Mississippi in May 2022.[6]

RLJE Films and Shudder acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Suitable Flesh before its world premiere on June 11, 2023 at the Tribeca Festival.[7][8][7] It premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 24, 2023.[9] The film is scheduled to be released in limited theaters and video on demand on October 27, 2023, before its streaming debut on Shudder in January 2024.[10]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10.[11]

Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting gave the film a score of four out of five and wrote, "Lynch captures the humorous, oft-sexy tone of Gordon's '80s/'90s Lovecraftian horror output while putting his own stamp on it through keen instincts and modern storytelling".[4] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com said, "Suitable Flesh is kind of tonally inconsistent—I kept wanting it to go "Full Gordon" and really go off the rails as much as it threatens to do so—but it's a fun horror flick, one I could imagine finding on VHS in 1989 and losing my mind over. In other words, a Dennis Paoli flick". He praised Crampton but felt Lewis was "little less effective in that he struggles to sell some of the mischievous charm needed for the role at times".[12]

• Suitable Flesh at IMDb