The Suckling
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Probably the most tasteless and obscure film we have reviewed thus far. This laughable attempt at a film at least falls into the “so bad it’s good” category when it’s not offending your sensibilities. And to think Todd first thought this was a faith-based film touting the dangers of abortion…
The Suckling (1989)
Episode 128, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Craig, today’s film, I believe you proposed a while back. I think you read about it somewhere online. Am I right about this?
Craig: I guess. I don’t know. For some reason, I was thinking it was your idea. But now that you say that, yeah. I think I I read about it on some list. I don’t know.
Todd: It’s just one of those cases where neither of us are gonna wanna take the credit for it. I don’t know know if anybody else is gonna know this movie either. It’s a 1989 film called The Suckling. I had never heard of it before it showed up on whatever list it was that you dredged up for this film. Yep. And you need you had neither, had you?
Craig: No. No. Never.
Todd: But we did read a little bit about it. At first, when I read about it or maybe it was the, you know, the whatever you sent me, whatever synopsis or whatnot, somebody else was reviewing it. I don’t even remember. At first, I thought this would be like kind of an anti abortion film, like, maybe even a like an early faith based type film where somebody was trying to use the genre of horror to make some point about the evils of abortion, and that is absolutely not the case.
Craig: No. No. It’s just trash. Like Total trash, this movie. It’s just a trashy movie. It reminded me a little bit, though really not as bad, as it it remind me of that movie that, like, our lost episode, the the one that we never even posted because it was so terrible.
Todd: Oh, street
Craig: What was that movie that we watched?
Todd: Street trash with literally with trash in the title. Right. Yeah.
Craig: It reminded me a little bit of that in that it was just it seemed to really be making an effort to really push some boundaries. And and, frankly, I I have to believe that they were kind of going for, some really kind of trashy stuff. I was watching, like, the first 20 minutes and I texted you and I’m like, oh my gosh. This might be the most in poor taste movie we’ve ever watched because it really is in really poor taste in parts. Now in the middle it tames out a little bit and becomes more of just kind of your regular B monster movie, But they sure cap it off at the beginning and the end with some pretty trashy material.
Todd: They sure do. They oh my gosh. Did they ever now that being said, it’s I don’t think it’s the worst movie we’ve ever seen. No. In many respects, I sort of feel like our barometer, at least my barometer, goes, with Todd don’t go into the woods. I sort of feel like I I’m not sure I’ve seen a worse horror film that was legitimately released somewhere
Craig: Right.
Todd: Than that one as far as the acting goes, the production value, the music, the plot, the I mean, almost every little bit of that film, I think we were extremely dismissive of. We couldn’t even say anything good about it. Really, could we? I don’t remember saying a single good thing about it. This movie, I have I have some good things to say about, but you’re right. It’s it’s really trashy. The suckling by a guy, a writer director named Francis Terry, who doesn’t have any other IMDb credits to his name as a writer or director.
Craig: Right.
Todd: Was an actor in flesh eating mothers, which I believe at one point was released by trauma. And I was in watching this movie I thought, oh, it’s a little like a Troma movie or at least like a movie that Troma would release. Something they would release after the fact, and I was really surprised that their name wasn’t plastered all over this, but, now this one seems Todd have just slipped into complete obscurity even though according to the only bit of trivia I was able to find on IMDB about it, it took the writer director a year and a half to raise funding for it.
Craig: Yeah. Which is kind of funny because it it it feels pretty cheap.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Okay. So it’s a monster movie, essentially, and, the monster, in some regards, looks really good in theory so long as it doesn’t really have to move or do anything, like, believably natural. Like, if you just were looking at it as, like, a sculpture, it looks really Todd. Yeah. But it can’t do anything except kinda just move from side to side or, like, thrust out at you. It’s, it’s not so great.
Todd: Oh, we’re totally gonna talk about this. Oh, we’re totally gonna talk about this monster later. Just just apparently, my son wants Todd as well.
Craig: Yeah. Good. I I’m interested to see what he has to say.
Todd: Nothing good.
Craig: No. It gave me it also gave me vibes a little bit of, Basket Case because it has that same kind of gritty just kind of this gritty feel to it. You’re kind of, looking at the underbelly of, society a little bit. Oh, yeah. And, I don’t know. Again, it has some things going for it, like it it opens up with this big scroll and I’m gonna go ahead and read it because I wrote the whole thing down. On April 13th 1973, the most bizarre and macabre event in all of Brooklyn’s history occurred. Twelve people, inhabitants of a reputed house of prostitution, and an illegal abortion clinic were killed.
Craig: Only Todd she was believed to be insane. Authorities immediately placed her in an insane asylum. The most brilliant investigators spent years trying to solve this gruesome mystery, but to this day are still baffled. Could the rantings of a girl supposedly insane be true? The makers of this film believe so. And so they go ahead and, you know, spoil the ending for you. You know that, there’s only gonna be one survivor of this whole flick which kind of steals any, anticipation or even sympathy that you might have for some of these characters because you know they’re all going down.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I I I will say it’s kind of an interesting premise. It’s original.
Todd: Well, you you’ve got that much going for it. It’s original in the and it’s probably never going to be done again. Probably not. Not after this film anyway. I it seems like it’s a requirement for bad movies like this to start out with some claim upon a real life incident because it’s like they need that to sort of prop themselves up a little bit.
Craig: Yeah. Legitimize it. Mhmm.
Todd: Well yeah. And also because this movie is is a pastiche of all kinds of horror film cliches as well and not really, nodding to it, but trying to, you know, throw in everything in the kitchen sink. Mhmm. And so that’s, you know, no different that it starts with this crawl that claims that this and there is absolutely no way, shape, or form that this was ever based on anything real. Oh, wow. That’s a total total invention.
Craig: Unless somebody was on some, like, major drugs, like Like, okay. Write that
Todd: down in the police report, but we all know this is bullshit. Well Right. And and also, I I like the premise that this is a combination bordello, and abortion clinic. Like Right. Like, you can get both things done at the same place. When I was growing up, we always used to laugh because it always seemed like Subway sandwich places and TCBYs must have some kind of agreement that they would always be, like, located next to each other in strip malls. Like, you know, you go into Subway, and, you eat this what you expect to be a healthy meal. And then you’re like, oh, I can I can go for dessert, but I still wanna be healthy? You know? So so you can’t
Craig: go for yogurts with ice cream. Quite the analogy. Yeah. A bordello slash abortion clinic. Like, you take care of 1 business, you take care of the other business. Well, that’s how that’s how it’s kind of
Todd: presented is that the prostitutes in this place are also getting abortions Mhmm. In this place as a matter of routine, but they’re also open to the public, you know. Oh my goodness. Where to begin? Oh, yeah. I know how we begin. We begin with a dream within a dream within a dream.
Craig: Oh, I’d even Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Yeah. The boobie nurse. I I had forgotten all about the boobie nurse.
Todd: Yeah. And I wondered if we were gonna see boobies in this movie. But they just get him out of the way at the beginning. Yeah. There’s a woman who’s sleeping, you know, it’s it’s lightning and thunder outside, and somebody comes into the house and is, like, walking up the stairs and there there’s just a lab coat, you know, that they’re dressed in and sinisterly, like, pulling out medications and needles and things as they approach the room. They get into the room, and and as best as I could tell from all the different close ups, this person injected the sleeping woman with some kind of sedative, openly placed this needle back in their pockets. Yeah.
Craig: The needle pointing up, like, that makes any sense at all.
Todd: World’s best doctor or nurse, takes them out of there. And then when this woman wakes up, she is being wheeled down a hallway, hostel style, right, looking left Yeah. And right into the rooms in this hospital, But the rooms in this hospital are are like, you know, gurneys and beds. There’s like blood splattered in places, and the nurses all are topless.
Craig: They have Mhmm.
Todd: Sexy nurse uniforms on.
Craig: Right. But it’s not sexy because they’re, like, covered in blood and, like Yeah. Carrying weapons and things. It’s No. I was I was very confused. I had no idea what was happening.
Todd: Well, as as is to be a testament to the rest of the movie, the acting being so great, one nurse struts out and and struts as in a director clearly told her, strut, strut harder, and put some real swing into your strut, because this girl looks like she is doing the best that she can to walk at high heels next to this, wheelchair with this other, you know, woman who’s kind of coming in and out, and, she’s casually swinging an ax. And the doctors exchange some words with her, and the next shot we get is of her on the operating table, apparently, with the doctor looking over her. And what happens? She just wakes up. Right? Or oh, no. The doctor cuts right into her stomach without any anesthetic. The woman screams, and boom, she wakes up. It was a dream sequence all along. So then after she wakes up from her dream, she goes to the bathroom, she’s getting some medication or something.
Todd: She swings the mirror closed, and boom, somebody behind her is like a staff member or something again at a hospital, and cuts her throat with a knife. And then she wakes up again, And this time, she’s in a hospital. At this point, I really wasn’t ready to believe anything I was going to see.
Craig: I wondered if the whole movie would be
Todd: a dream sequence by the time we were done with it. Okay. So we wake up, and we are in a another hospital. And I guess at this point, it’s a clinic or something, insane asylum, and, there’s some doctors walking in looking in, a super short guy and a tall older man, and they’re discussing this woman.
Clip: How long will she stay asleep before the next nightmare reoccurs?
Clip: At best approximately 2 hours.
Clip: How does somebody that young develop hyperremnervous?
Clip: Frank hasn’t told you about it?
Clip: No. No. I just arrived here.
Clip: Yeah. That’s right.
Clip: Oh, you heard about the massacre in that brothel about a week ago?
Clip: I haven’t read anything about it, but I heard it covered on the news. You know, being an intern keeps me rather busy.
Clip: Yeah. Well, this girl was the only one that lived through it.
Clip: Are you serious?
Clip: Yeah. What the hell happened
Todd: in there? I can only tell you what the police report said and what we could get out of it. Whether that’s the truth, I don’t know. Which cuts us into a flashback to 1973. Yeah. And thus begins our tale.
Craig: And I thought that it was going to be told in a series of flashbacks, but really what ends up happening is then the whole rest of the movie is the flashback and we don’t return into that mental, institution until the very end. Mhmm. But, and I wanted to say something about the score because at this point in the movie, the score I was like, oh, the score’s kinda good. It reminds me a little bit of John Carpenter. But then as the movie went on, it was like there was no consistency. Like, the score just changed all the time and was different from scene to scene and in some scenes it was okay and in some scenes it was just like a one finger plunk on the piano, and I don’t know. It was kind of a mess. But initially, I was, hopeful
Todd: Todd pan out, but it sounded almost like a a distant cousin to the Halloween theme song. Yeah. Yeah. And then Right. Then it’s it’s like somebody just who doesn’t actually play piano or who is particularly musically inclined plucking away at a piano. Right. Trying to make a score as best they can and especially by the time you get to the end. It, like, it’s so dissonant, and it’s it’s oh, my god.
Todd: It’s pretty awful. And the and so much of the movie is scored Todd. And it it it’s the score that this is another case of where the film is really relying on a score to try to add tension to scenes that would otherwise be extremely long and probably boring.
Craig: Yep. Well, and they kinda end up being that way anyway. What do you say? So how dare you? No. But, anyway, so there’s this young couple, and I don’t even know if they were ever given names. Like, even if you go to the IMDB page, most of the characters aren’t even named. You just see the actors’ names. But there’s
Todd: Why don’t we just give them names?
Craig: I was just gonna call them the girl and the well, because the the guy is kind of jockey, I guess. And I suppose there’s I suppose they’re supposed to be college students. They go to this abortion clinic, and when I say abortion clinic, I mean this old rundown house that looks like it was built specifically to be like a haunted house. Like, it that’s how rundown the outside of it is. And it’s in a bad part of town, town and why anybody would ever go there for any kind of medical procedures beyond me. But that’s what they’re there for, and she doesn’t wanna do it.
Clip: I don’t understand why you’re doing this. I told you. I won’t tell anyone that you will follow. Her. Besides, I’m going to put it up for adoption right away.
Clip: This would be so much easier,
Craig: just let her talk to
Clip: you and everything will be alright.
Clip: I’m gonna do what I wanna do. This is wrong. Anyway, this place isn’t legal.
Clip: We beat it to death already. Let’s just go in.
Craig: And, this handsome black guy who we find out his name later is Sherman, answers the door and they’re like, we’re here to see big mama. And he’s like, okay, let’s go around back. But as they’re heading back, there’s another guy that, shows up and he’s there for the hookers. And so he goes through the front Todd, and then we follow his encounter. It’s this dumb guy with this
Todd: Oh my god.
Craig: Weird with this weird hooker, and he’s wearing, like, a propeller beanie. And he opens this box and it’s filled with like dildos and whips and, he pulls out a dildo and he gifts it to the hooker and then he bends over and she starts doing her thing with his with his butt. And I I wrote down in my notes, I’m like anal question mark and like it was at this point that I was like okay. So it’s gonna be this kind
Todd: of movie. This kind of film. The best part about this scene is despite it being not sexy at all.
Craig: Oh, Todd. No. The first
Todd: part of this scene is the beanie, the propeller on his cap starts spinning when he’s excited apparently, in some cartoonish fashion. And and then when she’s, you know, kind of going full whole hog on him, the beanie spins so hard that the propeller flies off. This is all bits of comedy, I suppose, that we’re supposed to be cleaning from it, but it is executed so poorly
Craig: that it Well, and then another another hooker comes in and is and says to the the performing prostitute, like, somebody needs to see you or you’ve got a phone call or something. And so, like, she the the one who the guy is with, like, goes to leave the room, and the guy is like, well, what about me? And so the other hooker walks in and pulls the dildo out complete with, like, a, like, a popping sound when it comes out. And I was like, oh, man. And and really frankly, that’s kind of the only type of that humor that we get, but, it It sets a tone.
Todd: Yes. It certainly does. I think what the hooker says to this to the first hooker is, Mary, your grandma’s downstairs to drive you home. Yeah. And after she pulls out the dildo, she picks up a paddle with some spikes on it starts approaching the guy like, now it’s time for business. I’m thinking, is she gonna kill him? What kind of a place is this? Yeah. And you’re right. This is, we’re not gonna really go into an in-depth analysis of this film as though it were, like, great literature.
Todd: Oh, no. Subtext and con but it’s just so weird this that the scene is in this movie because it’s really the only attempt at this off the wall naked gun style humor. It doesn’t really flow with the rest of the film at all.
Craig: No. I mean, it’s just it’s kind of like apropos of nothing, like, you know, nothing comes of it or anything. It’s just this silly scene. And then it cuts to the abortion side of the house and we meet Big Mama, and I saw the woman who played Big Mama and I thought, wait a second. Is this a John Waters film? Because that’s what it felt like. It’s this, you know, this over the top woman with, like, major, like, makeup and eye shadow and kind of big hair and she’s just this really over the top, character and she lectures the teenage girl.
Clip: You’re young, so let me explain something to you. Having it when the time is right is the smart thing to do. I won’t kill it. Child, listen. You can speak all you want to after I’m finished. This thing you think you’re killing has no eyes, no ears, no fingers. It ain’t human. Not yet.
Clip: This is the easy way out. Real easy.
Craig: She gives her some what looked like kool aid I guess. And the girl’s like the girl’s like, no thank you. And big mom is like, honey, never turn down hospitality. So the girl drinks the Kool Aid and it immediately becomes apparent that she’s been drugged. And this is where, just the beginning, as though, you know, the anal play weren’t trashy enough, this is where it started to just feel really dirty to me because obviously this big mama has, without her consent, drugged this young girl and then she passes out and they perform the abortion on her against her will. I mean she had actively said she didn’t wanna do it and, you know, we we see the abortion. Now, thank goodness we are, you know, the camera is positioned from, you know, looking down over the girl’s shoulders, not from the other side cause that would have been even more terrible, but, it’s still pretty gross. I mean, the the big mama pulls out this fetus and it’s a pretty developed fetus and she even says this is the largest second trimester fetus I’ve ever seen.
Craig: It’s just gross. I mean, it’s just like, I mean it’s it’s it’s obviously fake, but it looks real enough to be uncomfortable and she hands it off to this girl, Bertha, and says get rid of it the way I told you to and Bertha takes it and flushes this huge fetus down the toilet and we see the fetus, like, moving through these huge totally not realistic sewer pipes, and it gets it gets dumped into this, you know, I don’t know, just this big open place in the sewer, and you hear just very briefly, thank goodness, but you hear very briefly a baby cry. Yeah. And so you so you know it’s not dead and that’s troubling in and of itself. And then, of course, right above the sewage grate in the yard of this brothel is a can of toxic waste.
Todd: Yeah. A big a big like like a oil drum with toxic waste written on the side casually tossed sideways and dripping. Yeah, right into the grate as these things do. Well, it’s how we get Ninja Turtles. So, well, this happened a lot in the late eighties apparently.
Craig: That’s true. We did have a toxic Todd waste problem in the late eighties.
Todd: Just casually discarded in the sewers of America. I’m this is why I was thinking so much of trauma, I think, is because this is more or less kind of how the toxic Avenger Yeah. Except they’re that’s a very self aware Todd in cheek film. And I I mean, I’m sure this was supposed to be a slight joke, but the the movie tries really hard to be taken seriously in so many ways that, it’s hard to to know what to write off. I mean, we did come after the fantastic naked gun hooker scene. So, you know, the the way that and I think what you’re getting at here is the tastelessness of the movie. A lot of it stems from just the casual almost glee and glibness that the whole abortion subject is tackled. And even in the beginning, the conversation between the girl and the boy is so Mhmm.
Todd: Dumb, so glib. It’s like they’re talking about whether or not they’re gonna buy a car together. It doesn’t even make sense. And at the at one point, you’re wondering, does she wanna do this? Does she not wanna do this? Why is she going into this house if she’s not interested in it? And then she talks to big mama, and she’s telling her she’s not gonna go through with it. She’s just doing it this because her boyfriend wants Todd. But then like, why did you get so far into this? What were you expecting to go into this room, into this appointment with this woman that you were just gonna say, well, we met and I decided not to and walk out? It was just so unclear to me. Like, even the dialogue didn’t make sense because at one point, doesn’t she say like, well, I need to do this because it makes him happy because I need to keep
Craig: Yeah. Something like that. I I think that what she’s saying is I only came here to make him happy, but I’m not going to do it. Oh. And I think that was what was so troubling to me was that she gosh. I mean, it’s a movie, and it’s a bad movie. And, like, you talk about the writing. The writing is horrible.
Craig: I mean, it’s just awful. The dialogue is so trite and stupid. I mean, I guess I understand why it doesn’t sit well with me, you know, that you’re performing abortions on people when they are unwilling and unconscious. Like, that’s that’s morally disgusting. And I I don’t know. I I guess I should just get over it and appreciate the fact that this is a b movie and it’s it’s silly, but it just didn’t sit well with me. It it made me very uncomfortable.
Todd: Well, it’s like of all the things you gotta put in your movie and everything you’re gonna base your film on, you get so many options and so many choices like, why? And then of course, you know, if we continue the big joke, as it goes along with, the, you know, the hooker that they’ve met in the her name is Candy, we find out later, that they met in the waiting room outside who’s, you know, sitting there chewing her gum, reading a magazine. Oh, was this your first time? Honey, it’s a third one for me. You know, you get used to it after a while. Hardy har har, who then follows her in there and big mama, as she’s talking with this woman, is casually yanking some junk off of the hook of a coat hanger.
Craig: It’s so gross.
Todd: And then the coat hanger back into shape to hang up her coat. Like, did somebody think this is funny?
Craig: No. I I mean, I guess they must have, but it’s not. It’s so disgusting. And not only is she, like, just casually cleaning it off, but, like, she doesn’t even get it clean, like, she leaves some of the tissue on there. And I I didn’t realize that she was hanging up clothes back on. I thought she was gonna use the same hanger on this next lady, which is even more gross. But I guess it’s, you know, it’s just par for the course.
Todd: It really is for for the 12 year old that wrote the script.
Craig: Yeah. Oh, god. It’s so bad. And then, you know, we see the toxic waste, you know, drips onto this fetus, and there, you know, some puppet effects, and it kinda starts to morph and, like, it it grows, like a claw. And then we cut back to upstairs where, I guess the boyfriend’s name is Phil. I guess he does have a name. I wrote it down. Phil, the boyfriend, is trying to comfort, his girlfriend and then, like, just the most random stuff happens.
Craig: Like, some John, like, insults 1 of the hookers or something, and so she shoots him.
Todd: And so then there’s just, like, this dead John in there.
Craig: And here’s a great example of how good, the writing is. The the the blonde hooker who is the one that was getting the abortion, and she’s kind of the older one.
Todd: I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Craig: So go on. Yeah. Tammy the hooker shoots this John, and, the other hooker says
Clip: Todd comes here to get his penis sucked, and he gets shot off instead.
Todd: Like,
Craig: like, out of context, that’s really funny. But, like, even just the fact that it just struck me as so funny that she said guy comes to get his penis sucked. Like
Todd: Yes.
Craig: Like, I would imagine that hookers would probably have more colorful language, but I I I don’t know a lot of hookers. So maybe maybe they have a limited vocabulary. I don’t know.
Todd: Maybe they’re real clinical in their descriptions to a point. You know, man comes to insert his penis in my vagina, and well, though she does actually follow it up later with a bit of, you know, there’s just like some home spot wisdom or something always coming from this woman. And I guess they’re talking about the tragedy of the death and what they have deal with it. And he she just looks at her and says
Clip: I don’t know. All these guys wanna do these days is shoot their load in your face. I guess everybody’s got their problems.
Craig: Oh, god. Yeah. Great. Just amazing writing. Yeah. I I mean, you know, I I think I was pretty clever at 13. I I could’ve I could’ve could’ve
Todd: missed. Yeah. I could’ve easily written us a 13. Let’s just put it that way.
Craig: Well, then then we get into what really becomes the major part of the plot. Bertha and Candy, the blonde hooker who talks about sucking penises, they’re, I don’t know, they’re just casually hanging out or whatever and they hear a weird noise from the toilet. And Candy’s like, just jiggle the flusher a little bit. So Bertha jiggles the flusher and they they keep hearing these noises. So she’s like, well, just go ahead and flush it. And so Bertha flushes it and they keep hearing the noises. The kid is like, well, jiggle the flusher again. And she does, but they still hear the noises.
Craig: So Bertha opens up the toilet and, like, sticks her head almost down inside it. Like, I don’t know if she was she was looking for. Right. But this umbilical cord shoots up out of it, goes all the way around her neck, and decapitates her. And the reaction on Candy’s face when this happens is really so funny because because, like, the director was, like, look shocked and horrified and she was like okay, like like it’s oh gosh, it’s the the lamest non reaction ever. And so then they start trying to get out. There’s this guy who lives there, I guess, named Axel, and he’s like the thug or or the muscle, I guess. I don’t know.
Craig: I don’t really know why he’s there. He’s just there to kind of be antagonistic, but he explains it well he exclaims, We can’t get the back door open. Something’s going on.
Todd: I I love how he goes into the room. Makes no mention or notice of the body without the head. Yeah. We presume is still there by the toilet, but, like, looks at the toilet, looks at the blood in the toilet, blood on the walls, like, runs his finger along it, like, sniffs it, like like he’s Sniffs it. Like he’s looking for drugs or cocaine or something like that.
Craig: And then big mama comes in and just says, girl, what happened? I gotta know. Just the funniest dialogue and the most terrible acting. Oh, it’s just awful.
Todd: And for apparently no reason. So, like, John and the girl are still there. And they tried the front door, but it was locked or something. And now, suddenly, they all come to this conclusion that that thing is probably what has us trapped in here. Like what? What Where did that notion even come from?
Craig: That thing is probably what’s got us trapped in here. It means to kill us all And and what it what it turns out being is like somehow, inexplicably, this fetus monster has encased the whole house or at least any exit to the house in like this organic material And it’s it it appears that it’s supposed to be, like, it’s a metaphor for a womb, like, they’re stuck in the womb. But, I mean, it’s just it’s just the it’s just goofy as shit. Like, it’s just so silly.
Todd: I like the, because Axel gets all Craig, and he’s like, no. I’ll I’ll get us out of here. And he starts he starts kicking at the door, the front Todd. Like, the door that swings inward, he’s trying
Craig: to kick open. He’s trying to kick it out. Oh my Todd. I couldn’t get over that. I’m, like, the hinges are on the inside. It doesn’t open that way.
Todd: And then he and then he grabs a chair and throws it against a window which makes makes the shades fall and shows us that the window is encased in what’s something that appears to be glowing or pulsing from the inside, which it really just looks like somebody put some brown paper over the window and there’s a light on the other side flashing. But then, it takes us to the outside of the building, unfortunately. And I guess they put some kind of they all decide that they can’t get out of there and whatever decapitated the 1 girl up at the toilet is what caused it. And there’s a nice bit of dialogue in the middle.
Clip: Where’d this thing come from?
Clip: We’re locked in. Check the windows.
Clip: I know about it already. Where’d this thing come from that killed Bertha?
Clip: The toilet, but does that matter now?
Clip: I’m thinking that kinda matters. I mean,
Clip: Something happened down there. I don’t know what but there must be some connection to all this a thing attacked her Something that can cause serious damage.
Todd: Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I can pull your head off. It’s it’s capable of some serious damage and this movie is trying so hard for style like I I have to give this director some credit for trying for watching a lot of other much better horror films, pulling the cinematography ideas from those, and trying them to abysmal failure in his own movie. Yes. Like, there are some great shot setups that just that would work if a competent person was behind the halfway competent person was behind the camera. And there and and you can pluck I could I could list off to you all of the different movies that these are pulled from. There’s a cool, shot, and you’ve seen it like 10 different movies before, but nonetheless, a guy walks into the room earlier in the film, and there’s a shot from above the fan blades. Right? Mhmm.
Todd: So you see fan blades swooping in front, and there’s even a sound effect that goes with it, like whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, kind of an over exaggerated sound effect. And that’s a cool kinda shot, you know, and that was about the only one that he did that really worked. The rest of them, like when, Sherman tries the phone and big and and it’s he picks up the phone. There’s this close-up on him picking up the phone. And then there’s a shot of big mom, and she’s like, it’s dead, isn’t it? And then there’s this shot that starts out from further away and slowly dollies in on Sherman, and by the time it reaches him, which takes, like, 5 seconds, he says, yeah. The phone’s dead. And it’s supposed to be so dramatic, but it is so poorly done.
Craig: Yeah. At this point where they’re all stuck inside and they are, you know, kind of infighting and talking about what they’re going to do, it gave me shades of Night of the Living Dead. And even with, you know, like some of the close ups on the characters and, you know, they’re trying to build this tension, but the writing and the acting are so bad. Like you said, it’s like they were trying to emulate, certain styles or or tropes or whatever, but just failing miserably. I have to admit, you know, we’ve watched some bad movies and there have been some movies that we’ve talked about where, you know, it was just really kind of a chore to even rehash them. And it’s, you know, it’s not super fun to rehash this point by point, but in watching these movies, it was it really is straddling that line between terrible and so bad it’s kind of fun. Like, when when I was watching it and even after I was done, I thought, you know, this was an awful movie. I would definitely never watch it again, but I don’t necessarily feel like I wasted my time.
Craig: Like, it’s almost like it’s like kinda like a car wreck. Like, you have to watch. It’s so bad. You have to see how bad this is.
Todd: You have to see if it could possibly get any worse or if there’s any way this movie is gonna redeem itself, and it doesn’t. And it does actually get worse. So that’s part of the entertainment value. I I I definitely put it more in that so bad it’s good camp, but you’re right. It really straddles the line. There are times in this movie where it’s really testing your patience, and there are other times when you’re just, like, gleefully your jaw is just on the floor.
Craig: Right. So terrible. And one one of the people that’s trapped in there with them is one of the Johns. I don’t know if it was the dildo John or if it was just somebody else, but, like, he has all these ridiculous lines, like, open that door or I’ll take my business elsewhere and I demand to know what’s going on. And meanwhile, the fetus is still moving around. It’s it Todd doesn’t make any logical sense. Like sometimes it’s actually moving through the pipes like this umbilical cord that can kill people and sometimes it’s just in the walls. At some point, it bursts out of the wall and grabs 1 of the hookers and kills them and at this point, it’s huge.
Craig: Somebody comments. They’re like, it’s growing at a really rapid rate. Like, yes. Yes. It is. Thank you for pointing that out, Yeah.
Todd: Which also does not do your movie any favors. No. The rate at which this thing is growing, Well, first of all, even the tentacles probably couldn’t fit through the pipes of your house. Right. And they come out in all these places. The I think the hooker upstairs gets one of the hookers upstairs gets killed, and Axel and Sherman have it out and have this inane conversation downstairs. Apparently, they oh, Todd. I almost forgot this part.
Todd: Apparently, they only have 2 tools in the entire place Mhmm. A hammer and a screwdriver. And so they decide that they have to chisel their way out, and I’m thinking, oh, okay. So they’re gonna go to where they broke the window open, and they’re gonna find that membrane thing, and they’re gonna try to chisel through it. No. They hand the hammer and the screwdriver to the John who sits down at the front door under great protest Yeah. Starts to try to chisel away at the center of the of the wooden door.
Craig: And when Sherman when Sherman tells him he has to do it, he’s like, Me? I’m a businessman. I’m not a laborer. I’m not going to attempt to chisel through that wall. It’s absurd. You’ve been treated like this before. You’re a Bulgarian. You’re so awful. And yeah.
Craig: And so then he just kind of timidly starts tapping away at the door. It almost looks like they the direction was, okay. You’re chiseling away at the door, but don’t make any marks on it because we have to do reshoots. Right.
Todd: This is somebody’s door and we don’t wanna pay for it.
Craig: And he sits and he sits there for like what what appears to be like 15, 20 minutes and he’s like sweating and he’s like, I’m not getting anywhere. And, like, no. You’re not. Like, you haven’t even touched it.
Todd: And when he’s not chiseled away at the door, apparently, this man is super lecherous and cannot contain himself around women. Wow. This is the most stereotypical John you could possibly imagine, and he can’t even stand to sit on the edge of a sofa with these 2 prostitutes in the middle of this Craig without looking down the 1 girl skirt and like heavily breathing and starting to get hot and bothered.
Craig: Yeah. Oh, he’s like he’s like, I got a $100 in my pocket. And they literally laugh at him. Lap at him. And then he’s like, well, you’re just a bunch of cheap whores. I’m never coming back here again. Okay. Alright.
Craig: See you later.
Todd: Go back to chiseling the door.
Craig: Oh, man. Oh, gosh. And then, you know, like, really, this kind of is the part that’s really kind of tiresome because things are happening, but not really. I mean, Sherman and Axl fight some more, you know, there’s some, you know, Axel has a gun, Sherman gets it away for a while, but then the giant fetus jumps out of the wall and grabs, Sherman. Again, another hilarious part because this giant monster pops out of the wall, grabs this black guy, pulls him back into the wall, and Axel’s response is he has this gun. He just starts shooting it randomly all around the room. Like, what I didn’t even under like, I guess he thought it’s in the walls. I’ll try to but it was huge and it was just right there, like, how could it have gotten from there to the ceiling to the opposite wall in the split second since we last saw it.
Todd: This thing is bigger and thicker than a human and a wall is about 6 inches maybe space in there. 6 inches wide. This thing comes out of the wall. This was also on the side of the staircase. This wall, like, had stairs on the other side of it. So you know that that there was especially no room for it to go, and suddenly it pops out, grabs this thing, and disappears into the 6 inches. And is somehow maneuvering around the 6 inches of wall space throughout the room. The
Craig: the creature itself, I mean, it it thankfully, it doesn’t look anything like a human baby anymore. Like, it really just is a big monster. It reminded me a lot of the monsters from FEAST. Actually, I think there were like 3 FEAST movies. These huge huge pointy sharp teeth and, you know, just incredibly monstrous. So at least you kinda get away from feeling sympathetic about it being but the the the other thing that I was thinking the whole time, these I I guess, in theory, they don’t know. But I wondered if the movie was eventually going to go there, like, with it’s alive or whatever, where the couple was gonna realize, oh, but that’s our child. No.
Todd: I thought so too.
Craig: No. It’s just a giant monster. Yeah. I thought
Todd: it would, like, somehow, like, the the way that they would get away from it is that the mother would somehow have some connection to it. Like, once it approached the mother, that there would be something that happened. And there was, but it wasn’t didn’t certainly go the direction I expected to go. Okay. So they go to the basement. Oh, Axel. They’re trying to build this tension where Axel’s taking charge and he’s threatening everybody inside there with a gun, which makes no sense. It makes no sense why they would put up with it.
Todd: And the the gun he’s waving around is so obviously plastic.
Craig: He’s threatening them, but then he actually does shoot candy in the head. And I didn’t eat the for no reason. Like, out of nowhere, like, she looked at him wrong or something. I kinda liked Candy. She was trashy, but she was my favorite character. But you’re right. You know, like you said, they they head down to the basement because they’re like, okay. What is it like? It likes tight spaces, and it likes water.
Craig: And, Phil, the boyfriend’s like, the boiler room? And they’re like, yeah.
Todd: And I was like, this house has a boiler room? This is Nightmare on Elm Street or something. It’s just the basement is all it is, and they go downstairs, and the basement’s really just this long narrow corridor. And I’m thinking, how is this giant monster going to surprise them down there? But it does, of course. By the time they get to the end of the corridor, it, jumps out and gets another girl, one of the random prostitutes. Vanessa.
Craig: And then so Axel tries to shoot it shoot it, but he runs out of bullets. And then I did not understand this at all. Like, the the fetus monster kind of flees around a corner or something. And when Axel follows it, he finds it, and it’s being electrocuted by, like, the fuse box. Why? Like, did it do this on purpose? Did it just accidentally grab the fuse box? But it’s being electrocuted, and so Axel, genius that he is, picks up a huge metal pole, and I I’m thinking even if you just hit or stab this creature, like, it’s a freaking metal pole and it’s being electrocuted, you moron. But even better than that, he goes at it like he’s going to stab it, and the fetus at the last minute pulls away from the fuse box. And so Axel stabs the fuse box with the metal pole, and then so he gets electrocuted and he’s dead. And explodes.
Craig: His head explodes.
Todd: Yeah. Because that
Craig: that would happen. I mean, I
Todd: don’t know
Craig: if you know anything about electricity, but, you know, your head would explode if It’s only natural. I like that our program is educational. People people can take away fun facts. That’s right.
Todd: Don’t play around fuse boxes, kids. You could explode.
Craig: Explode. Okay. Alright.
Todd: It’s like this movie’s 1 giant ABC after school special about the dangers of abortion.
Craig: Yeah. It’s it it felt like a little bit at times. And then I really just felt like they had to be padding for time because the teen mother has a montage dream for no reason. It’s just a montage of everything that’s happened so far in the movie, and then she wakes up like,
Todd: ah. And then there’s this whole little interlude that I don’t understand because it’s just kinda stuck in there. And it’s big mama and one of the other prostitutes, and she’s telling her, now don’t you fret, girl. Big mom will get us out of this situation. What? How have you done anything? Nothing. Then the John joins them. And so the 3 of them are in there talking, and suddenly they hear some noises again, and they’re freaking out, and this girl has this gun. And I guess it’s supposed to be, like, will she have the courage to do what she has to do and shoot this gun at this monster? And they’re tensing up, and I feel like maybe they’re in the kitchen, and maybe this is like a closet door.
Todd: It’s really quite unclear.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: She shoots at this door 4 or 5 times, and who should come through it but Vanessa. And in case we didn’t catch it, the John says, oh my god. Vanessa wasn’t dead. Mhmm.
Craig: Or she is dead. And then big mama says, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. And then the hooker who shot Vanessa has a flashback of the scene that just happened.
Todd: That happened. Oh, that is so good. Was this for impact or something? We need to be reminded immediately of what just happened, the emotional toll it’s supposed to take on us? Oh my
Craig: god. Funny. And then
Todd: and then we’re back to the John sitting in the doorway criticizing the guys who made a battering ram. I don’t even know. Like, you can’t even can’t even mention all the stupid things that happened in this movie. But at at one point earlier, they had this this decision to make a battering ram to smash the door. Again, the door that swings inside, they’re gonna bash, down with the battering ram. And their idea was that Axel has all these weights in the basement. And so I guess they put them inside of a big trunk, and they got some big thick rope, and they used the tools that they don’t have, or maybe this is where the chisel came in, to cut away a part of the ceiling so they could expose the the beams of the second floor to hang this, trunk full of weights from. So then if they could pull it up the stairs and let it go, it’s supposed to hit the door and eventually bash the door in, except this thing just kind of bounces off the door.
Craig: It’s really a stupid idea. Yeah.
Todd: It’s really dumb. Very, very bad.
Craig: And it’s a major plot point. Like, we keep revisiting it several times. But eventually, they get it to work and it makes a a hole in the door.
Todd: It makes a a nice square clean hole in the door.
Craig: Right. That leads to what I can only imagine was supposed to be a birth canal. Is that the vibe that you were getting? That’s what it’s like it’s like it’s like this tunnel and there’s like supposed to be. We don’t know where it goes, but I can see the light at the end. That must be the outside light.
Todd: But it’s it’s more like somebody’s closet.
Craig: Or like or like a a Todd oddly lit, like, greenhouse or something because the material that’s hanging down just looks like, oh gosh, that kind of organic, like, sack cloth kind of, material.
Todd: Muslin, sackcloth, and netting all hanging down, but shot through a red filter. So I suppose it’s supposed to look gross and slimy, but there’s nothing gross or slimy about it. It looks like exactly what it is. Mhmm. And the John decides he’s gonna dive into it. I don’t know. Is this a thing? Like, the John, you know, he can’t keep out of the the vagina or something. He decides to dive on in, and so we get about 10 minutes of him just pushing cloth aside basically as he’s poking probing his way through.
Todd: And sure enough, he he gets, killed by the monster.
Craig: But but then there’s a shot of, like okay. So he gets killed by the monster and then there’s a shot of his hand his severed hand crawling around on the floor? I I don’t even I didn’t even know what was happening. Like, I’ve just got a big question mark in my notes. Whatever. And then the last the last hooker kills herself. I guess she just can’t take it anymore. And then, the fetus, which is now enormous, kills Big Mama.
Todd: Coming out of the washing machine.
Craig: Yeah. And then so the only 2 left are the couple, the original couple. And the college guy says, I know what to do. I’ll let it take me, and then I’ll shoot. That way, I can’t miss. I’ll kill it for sure. The giant fetus attacks and kills the college guy, and then it starts to approach the girl who somehow has fallen back and is now on her back. And, Todd, as terrible as this is, I just couldn’t help but laugh out loud at this part.
Craig: It was so funny and it looked awful. Like, it just looked terrible. Like, seriously, literally 13 year olds with a handheld camera, if they were innovative enough to do just even the most minor special effects and editing, could film could have filmed this in their garage. Like, it’s just so bad.
Todd: Yeah. This thing comes running towards her. As as it runs towards her, it’s cutting between her and this thing, and every time it cuts back to the thing, the thing is getting smaller and smaller and more normal fetus looking. And about 2 seconds into this, I realized to my horror that this thing was shrinking down and jumping back up inside her. Yeah. And the movie was actually gonna do that. Wow. So that’s where it ends at that point, and the next what we see is the next morning when the cops come in.
Todd: I guess they cut the cops have been called by somebody, maybe the neighbors, and, they’ve cut their way through whatever membrane was around the house, and it looks around, oh my Todd, you know, this place is a mess. And they shine their light down, and there’s the girl laying on the floor. And the next shot we get is, I believe, of the 2 doctors walking down the hall, and I was like, oh, yeah. I forgot about these guys. Mhmm. And they’re telling me about how silly the story is, And there’s a bunch of dumb bi play between them. And I thought it might be a director’s cameo or something. The guy sit the orderly sitting down in the hallway guiding them and says, oh, she’s been transferred back to ward b or whatever.
Todd: And then it’s a shot straight out of Psycho where there’s this girl in a straight jacket in the corner of a giant white room and slowly pulls out. Except Psycho’s a little too classy, so they had to make this a giant white room filled with a bunch of random crazy people doing crazy things.
Craig: Right. Totally stereotypical. Yeah.
Todd: Yeah. And I thought it was gonna end there. I thought, oh, okay. This woman, she’s in the insane ward, and then a crawl is gonna come back up. To this day, nobody still knows for sure what happened. But, no, 2 orderlies come in, and they walk up to her like a couple of thugs. They’re like, Yeah. This one won’t mind.
Todd: They pull her out, into the hallway, and one of them starts raping her.
Craig: Yeah. Just super casually, like, again, like I said, you know, the very the beginning and the end are so trashy and this was, you know, this is the trashy end cap where not that you necessarily care about this character, but she’s, you know, catatonic and he pulls her out in the hall and just, you know, right there in the hall in front of his buddy, in front of the other inmates who are watching, just very casually just starts raping her right there in the hallway and it’s not graphic, like there’s no nudity or anything, but it’s so gross, like, it’s just so uncomfortable to watch the thrusting and, so yuck and but I guess the fetus that’s inside her shoots out its umbilical cord and kills the orderly. And then it cuts to black and it starts to go to the credits. And I’m, like, oh, good. Thank Todd that’s over. But then there’s a whole extra scene in the credits that seemed like it came from a different movie. I didn’t even under I don’t even know what was happening. It’s like this adult guy and this kid watching somebody, like, melt in front of the whorehouse.
Craig: Like like, there’s their flesh all melts away and these 2 are just standing there watching in horror. And there’s no explanation for it. I have no idea who those people were. I have no idea what was happening. Did I miss something? Did you know what was going on?
Todd: I had no idea. I thought I thought we were gonna see I thought we were looking at outtakes or some some some special effect that wasn’t used or something, but absolutely no idea. It looks like it came from a completely different movie just like you said. Actually, it looks like it came from street trash. That’s what I was thinking of because they all melted in that movie. Remember? Yeah. Oh my god.
Craig: Oh, gosh. Well, this movie, you know, folks, if you’ve made it all the way through this with us, I commend you. None of the actors from this movie are recognizable. I, you know, I looked at some of their credits and and none some of them had done other schlockybee movies like this, but other than that, really nothing. So I don’t have anything to tell you about them, and I I really couldn’t find anything about the production or anything like that either, you know. The the only other interesting thing that I found was that it was also released under the title Sewage Baby, which I actually think is a more appropriate title. Way better. And would maybe give you a better indication of what you’re getting into, if you’re gonna watch this, movie.
Craig: It’s terrible. It’s a terrible movie. It’s it’s not well made. I mean, though I will agree with you that I do think that there were attempts at style. Just overall, it just seems very amateur, the acting is awful. The the worst thing in my opinion is the writing. The writing is so bad. Again, I would never ever watch it again, but if somebody asked me, you know, I’m looking to watch, you know, a really bad movie, something that I can just goof on with my friends.
Craig: I would say, well, you should check out Sewage Baby or The Suckling or whatever it’s called, because it is terrible. And if that’s what you’re looking for, this you found it.
Todd: You will get it in spades. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you entirely. It’s a clearly a movie that in many ways aspires to something great. Like, you could tell that the person who made it really thought that they were gonna make some bank with it, and then was maybe trying to throw in a bunch of edgy stuff to make sure that people watched it. And instead, I imagine it just turned so many people off.
Craig: I I
Todd: I don’t even know what kind of distribution this movie got. I don’t know what story. You can’t even find information about it online. Mhmm. I don’t even know how we found out anything about it to begin with.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: It’s just super obscure. It has it absolutely deserves to be. It’s tasteless in every respect and not even in a fun way. But the movie, like you said, it straddles that line. And to be honest, there’s quite a bit of it’s so fun. It’s so bad. It’s hilarious in it. Mhmm.
Todd: And we’ve seen so many movies that are not like that. Bad movies that are just bad movies that this one is definitely not the worst movie that we reviewed by far, but it’s
Craig: Todd, that’s sad, isn’t it? Yeah.
Todd: It really shows what we go through Yeah. For you guys. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. Just don’t make them watch this film.
Craig: If you still want them to be your friend.
Todd: You could find us online everywhere you could find podcasts. You can also find our website 2 guys dot redfortynet.com where, we also occasionally post written reviews of films and grow our ever enlarging fan base from 2 to possibly 3 or 4, which might actually diminish after they hear this particular episode. Let’s see. Anyway, thank you again for listening. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.