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How a master of horror's unmade film was revived into the scary, sexy Suitable Flesh
Hollywood is full of horror stories — and this particular one spans decades.
In director Joe Lynch's body-swap horror movie Suitable Flesh, Heather Graham plays psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Derby, who initially concludes that her new patient (Judah Lewis) is suffering from multiple personality disorder. The truth is even more concerning. The seemingly troubled young man has been possessed by an evil presence who can hop from one person's physical form to another.
"This entity has traveled through time taking over different people's bodies," says Barbara Crampton, who plays a colleague of Graham's character in the movie and is also one of the film's producers. Lynch hopes that his film will delight and also maybe unsettle viewers when the movie premieres at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. "There's nothing better than being able to entertain the audience but push them a little bit," says the filmmaker, who directed 2019's crime thriller Point Blank starring Anthony Mackie. "This movie will hopefully incite anger, maybe some sexy feels, maybe some laughter, maybe some thrills. I'm excited to see what the fallout's going to be like."
RLJE Films/Shudder Heather Graham in 'Suitable Flesh'
There is a real-life body-swap element to the behind-the-scenes story of how Crampton shepherded the film to the screen, although one tinged with sadness rather than supernatural malevolence. Suitable Flesh is an updated adaptation of the 1933 short story "The Thing on the Doorstep," by horror author H.P. Lovecraft. The project was originally developed in the '90s by screenwriter Dennis Paoli and the late director Stuart Gordon. The duo made their reputation with 1985's gory, funny, and lusty Lovecraft adaptation Re-Animator, which starred Crampton. The trio would reunite on two more tales inspired by the author's work, 1986's From Beyond and 1995's Castle Freak, with Paoli and Gordon returning to the Lovecraft well one more time for 2001's Dagon.
Despite their success adapting the author, the pair were never able to get backing for their version of "The Thing on the Doorstep," which at various points was titled Transferences and Out of Body. For a period, Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna hoped to make the project part of a film franchise called the Seven Deadly Sins of Horror, and the collaborators changed the movie's name again to Envy. But the film series ultimately stalled. "Dennis did a rewrite, to give it that bent towards envy of another person's body," says Crampton. "They couldn't get that off the ground." As late as 2016, Gordon told the Psychotronic Cinema website that he was "still trying" to get the movie made, but it was not to be — the director died in 2020 at the age of 72, with the project stuck in development hell.
Crampton effectively retired from performing in the early aughts to concentrate on raising her two children but returned to acting and the horror genre with 2011's You're Next. She went on to appear in a string of genre projects, including an episode of the Shudder TV show Creepshow on which she first worked with Lynch. Crampton also began producing movies, working with the company Alliance Media Partners (AMP) to help make the 2021 vampire film Jakob's Wife, which starred the actress and Larry Fessenden. Crampton had remained friendly with Gordon and, after the director's passing, approached Paoli to ask if there were any projects he and the director had worked on which never made it to the screen. The writer sent over his script for the pair's take on "The Thing on the Doorstep."
"I read it and immediately I could visualize it," says Crampton. "I said, 'I want to work on this, let me see if I can get AMP to be as crazy about it as I am.' They read it and they all loved it."
AMP and Eyevox Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton in 'Suitable Flesh'
The actress thought Lynch — whose previous credits also include 2007's horror sequel Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and 2017's Steven Yeun-starring rage-virus movie Mayhem — might be the right person to channel Gordon's spirit. Crampton even recalls the late director giving the younger filmmaker the thumbs-up. "I said to Stuart, 'Who do you think in today's modern world of directing is close to your sensibility?'" Crampton explains. "He said, 'Joe Lynch' and I agreed. Joe was the first person that I thought of to direct this movie and I sent the script to him."
Lynch, in turn, was a fan of Gordon, whose mixing of horror, humor, and eroticism had influenced his own approach to filmmaking. "I had met Stuart over the years, I had seen him at the Masters of Horror dinners," says the director, referring to the gatherings of genre legends organized by filmmaker Mick Garris (The Shining TV show). "We were mutual fans of each other, which was a trip to me. I'm like, holy crap, Stuart Gordon has seen my stuff! I always admired the fact that he was one of those provocateurs, pushing limits in cinema. Him and De Palma and Verhoeven, I loved all these guys."
AMP and Eyevox Judah Lewis in 'Suitable Flesh'
Lynch liked Paoli's script but suggested that the writer flip the sex of the protagonist, who was male in both the original Lovecraft story and in the writer's screenplay. "That was really exciting to me, that we could see what the thematics of obsession and desire and sexuality would be like in [a female character's] shoes," says Lynch. "Barbara and Dennis [thought it was] interesting. Dennis really dove deeper into what it would be like if we swapped these genders and something clicked — it felt dangerous again. Often we said 'What would Stuart do?' and this felt like something Stuart would do."
Crampton was now looking for a lead actress instead of a lead actor. "Joe and Dennis worked together to change the character to female," she says. "We sent it to Heather Graham and, lo and behold, she said, 'This is one of the best projects I've been offered in a really long time, I'd really love to do this movie.'"
AMP and Eyevox Heather Graham and Johnathon Schaech in 'Suitable Flesh'
Graham's costars include That Thing You Do! actor Johnathon Schaech and Bruce Davison, an Oscar nominee for 1989's Longtime Companion. Crampton reveals that the Suitable Flesh team also deliberately "peppered" the cast with actors who had history with Gordon, notably Chris McKenna, who starred in the director's 2003 film King of the Ants, and Graham Skipper, who played Dr. Herbert West in the Gordon-directed stage show Re-Animator: The Musical. "We wanted to tip our hat again to Stuart," says the actress. "And if you stay to the end credits you'll see that we dedicated the movie to him."
Even so, before Lynch began shooting Suitable Flesh in Mississippi last year, Crampton made clear to the director that he should not feel as if he was obliged to overly ape Gordon's style. "I did say to Joe, 'I want this to be an ode to Stuart Gordon but it has to be your movie,'" she recalls. "My only suggestion [was], I feel we can bring Lovecraft — who is kind of inaccessible to a lot of people — to a more mainstream audience. I think he achieved that and I hope people feel the same."
AMP and Eyevox Director Joe Lynch on the set of 'Suitable Flesh'
The project's new title, Suitable Flesh, refers to the entity's search for appropriate hosts and the film's erotic content. "It is a sexy film, it is," says Crampton. "I don't think Lovecraft is inherently sexy, but Stuart Gordon's movies always were."
"The intimate scenes in the film very much drive the story and very much drive the characters," says Lynch. "Our cast were very game to explore that with us in a way that felt very mature."
AMP and Eyevox Poster for 'Suitable Flesh'
In April, Lynch and Crampton surprised attendees at Kansas City's Panic Fest by showing five minutes of footage from the film while hosting a screening of From Beyond. The director says the teaser "killed. For Lovecraft and Stuart Gordon fans, it was perfect after watching From Beyond, because it feels like an extension of this world. I was gripping Barbara's hand and we were going 'Eeee!' It was great."
So, are there any other unmade projects developed by Gordon and Paoli that Crampton might bring to the screen? "That's a really good question and, I'll be honest, that's one I haven't asked yet because it's just so all-consuming to get any movie off the ground," says the actress-producer. "I guess that will be my next question for Dennis. What's next for us?"
Suitable Flesh will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 11; RLJE Films will release the movie in theaters later this year, followed by its streaming debut on Shudder.
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