As I muse over genres, it seems that “low-budget Lovecraftian horror” might be an—ahem—suitable one. This is perhaps because Lovecraft has trouble being taken seriously as a literary writer and his stories are so easily parodied. I watched Suitable Flesh unaware that it was a Lovecraftian (low-budget) movie. I’ve seen quite a few of these over the years and they can be pretty fun. This one was somewhat enjoyable. Based on Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep,” it’s a body-swapping, possession fest that involves two psychiatrists who have been friends forever but who both become victim of a nameless possessing entity. It took some adjusting to believe Heather Graham in her lead role here—she doesn’t strike me as the Lovecraftian type. She does seem to enjoy her role, nevertheless.
Lovecraft famously didn’t write many women. He was xenophobic and a racist. He didn’t much enjoy being married. Modern films (and even novels) based on his works tend to redress this situation, sometimes creating a little disconnect with the white-male Lovecraftian universe. Still, the story is fun. Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Graham’s character) encounters a young man whom she supposes is schizophrenic. In actuality, his body is being taken over by an entity that had possessed his father. While possessed, the patient begins an affair with Dr. Derby and that leads to her also being a target of possession. Although not considered a comedy it does seem that part of the story has an inherent humor about it. Some consider it camp. Lovecraft’s mood is difficult to translate to film.
Although cinema existed during Lovecraft’s lifespan, his writing wasn’t influenced by the possibility of film conversion. The monsters are too enormous and the concepts too broad. The real fear here, apart from the gross-out effects, is that of losing your identity. The whole centers around a psychiatric ward where the supernatural events aren’t really accepted by the science that reigns. People end up dying because the supernatural is inadmissible. In this aspect, it shares some of the overarching concepts of some great horror. The Exorcist, for example, derives a great deal of its energy from the fact that modern people have great difficulty in accepting that a demon could actually exist and science doesn’t seem to be working. There are plenty of other examples of this. Lovecraft’s stories bring us close to this realm, although Lovecraft himself was an atheist. Maybe that’s one of the reasons his works are difficult to translate to film. Or maybe something larger is going on.