Who do you think you are?
Dr. Daniella Upton's (Barbara Crampton) had a weird few days. There's a mutilated corpse in a body bag in her morgue and her best friend, Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham), has gone from a polished career woman with an adoring husband to a panicking mental patient in the psych ward at Miskatonic University Hospital in Arkham, Massachusetts, where both women worked. At Dani's insistence, Beth tells her the story of the events that lead to her downfall, including her entanglement with handsome, troubled Asa Waite (Judah Lewis), his mysterious father Ephraim (Bruce Davison), and the mysterious link between them- and eventually, Beth herself.
You see, Asa showed up at Beth's psychiatric practice in a state of panic, begging for help much the same way Beth is now- and then suffered a seizure right before Beth's eyes, after which he immediately began acting... different.
As though he weren't Asa at all.
Suitable Flesh is a genderflipped modern-day adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep directed by Joe Lynch, and adapted from an unproduced screenplay by Re-Animator creator and director Stuart Gordon (to whom it is also dedicated). It is in some ways a Spiritual Successor (alongside From Beyond), including the return of star Barbara Crampton as Daniella Upton and the original film's modern-day Miskatonic University Hospital and psych ward, including some very familiar hospital hallways.
The film provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: The original story's Ephraim Waite was an Evil Sorcerer who figured out how to plant his own consciousness in his daughter Asenath's body and from there, Edward Derby's. Here, he's just one of a series of victims of an ancient body-stealing entity.
- Adaptation Species Change: Asenath Waite in the original story was half-Deep One, though that never quite comes up in the story (not least because the real Asenath died as a child, twice over, and never got to make her Change). Asa is, as far as we can tell, human.
- Ambiguous Gender: The ancient, evil soul possessing Ephraim, then Asa, then Beth, and finally Dani. While they express many, many chauvinistic opinions about women- all the way down to a belief that they should Stay in the Kitchen- and prefer male hosts until Beth's body provides an enticing alternative, they can't remember how they were born into their original body and concede that their desire for a man's power might very well have been out of frustration at being a woman.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Beth looks rougher and rougher as her life unravels, and that's not even getting into what happens to the body that used to be Asa's.
- Body Horror: Beth repeatedly smashes the thing possessing the now-dead Asa's body with a car, and then repeatedly stabs them for good measure. The results aren't pretty. Beth in Asa's corpse is even worse, leaving a wide streak of blood as she drags herself one-handed across the hospital floor, trailing intestines behind her and revealing one leg to have been totally severed by her attempt to kill the body-stealing entity.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Beth in Asa's body finally dies, courtesy of a Mercy Kill from Dani.
- Car Fu: At the climax of the flashbacks forming the bulk of the movie, Beth hits the entity in Asa's body several times with her car to try and kill it, which fails to accomplish anything.
- Depraved Bisexual: The body-stealing entity describes themself as having "a man's desires" and is quite the opportunistic groper toward Beth and Dani, but as soon as they're in a female body they're eager to have sex with a man.
- Downer Ending: Asa and Beth are dead. Dani, in Beth's body, is left screaming about the truth in a padded room in the Miskatonic Hospital psych ward, and the body-stealing entity is free to continue its reign of terror from Dani's body, and possibly with its eye on Edward next.
- Expy: The entity's Slouch of Villainy, open substance abuse, unleashed bigotry, mocking loucheness and general ax-craziness make the victims it possesses bear more than a little resemblance to Jack Torrance once the Overlook's thoroughly gotten to him. It's especially pronounced in Asa's body, where it prefers a mocking smile and a Kubrick Stare that makes Asa's boyish, floppy hair look like a youthful and non-receded version of Jack's.
- Gender Flip: Asenath Waite becomes Asa, Daniel Upton becomes Daniella, and while there is a character named Edward Derby, that character's role is taken by this film's Edward's wife, Beth. Subverted by Ephraim still being a man and possessing his son, rather than his daughter — though perhaps double subverted by Ephraim also being a victim of the body-changer, who might have once been a woman.
- Glamour Failure: The body-thieving entity always has a palsied left hand no matter whose body they're inhabiting.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking:
- Dani Upton vapes, which is framed as perhaps a little silly for her age but fairly harmless and relatable. The body-thieving entity chain-smokes cigarettes, and hand-rolls them if they can get to loose tobacco and rolling papers. When they've taken over Dani's body in the end, they curiously try her vape, only to end up throwing it in the trash in a coughing fit and digging out their loose tobacco and rolling papers instead.
- Cigarette smoking in general is associated with a loss of control. One of Beth's patients has been seeing her for help quitting; when working with Asa starts to take over her life, she misses appointments with the other patient, and later finds him smoking outside of her practice. Edward later takes up smoking after he is unknowingly raped by the entity in Beth's body, because the entity smoked as well and Edward assumes it's Beth loosening up.
- Grand Theft Me: Asa comes to Beth for help after his father or rather, the thing that's already pulled this on his father has done this to him. The being then decides Beth makes a good target, too...
- Imposter Exposing Test: Dani asks the entity what her name is while it's in Beth's body. She never told the entity, so she's able to figure out that it's not really Beth.Dani: What's my name?Entity: Is this some kind of test?Dani: Yes it is.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: The entity's first reaction to finding themself in Beth's body is to feel up her breasts. Then they rub a few fingers between her legs and their eyes nearly cross with pleasure. It's unknown what the entity's actual gender is anymore, but they haven't had a female body in a long time.
- Mercy Kill: After Beth is permanently trapped in Asa's body, left maimed beyond repair by her attempt to kill the body-stealing entity, she begs Dani to end her suffering. Dani reluctantly complies, shooting her in the head to finish her off.
- Mistaken for Insane: Beth believes that Asa's belief that his father is swapping bodies with him, and his personality changes when it happens, are the result of a dissociative disorder. Later, Beth herself is believed by Dani to be suffering a psychotic break when she's the one trying to warn people about the entity trying to steal her body. And at the end of the movie, Dani is locked away in a padded room after being trapped in Beth's body, likewise written off as having lost her mind.
- Nice Guy: Edward Derby is probably the nicest person in the film.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Averted. The being in Beth's body has aggressive, kinky sex with Edward without waiting for an invitation, involving knifeplay. Edward never realizes it's not really Beth, but as we find out later, he really enjoyed it rough and invites Beth to do it again. Beth, horrified, realizes the being used her body to rape him, and begs for him to go somewhere safe without her so it can't happen again, despite Edward's confusion.
- Off with His Head!: How the entity kills Asa trapped in Ephraim's body.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The entity, particularly when possessing Dani and screaming for a patient to be shot as a first resort.
- Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: A side effect of the entity possessing a body seems to be making it capable of resurrecting from anything (without actually healing the body) except for the destruction of the brain, even after the entity has moved on to another body as best demonstrated when Beth ends up trapped in Asa's heavily maimed body and keeps coming back until Dani shoots her in the head.
- Shout-Out: This isn't the first or even the second time Ephraim Waite or a character loosely based on him has been reimagined as a vessel for a much older spirit.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Asa is killed only a little way into the film in "Ephraim's" body. The body sticks around, though, with a new driver...
