Suitable Flesh

While neither particularly profound nor earth-shatteringly scary, “Suitable Flesh” is better than passable grisly horror fun in a very specific tradition. A tradition hinted at by the presence of Barbara Crampton in the cast and a title card situating the goings-on taking place at a medical facility called “Miskatonic.”

Yup, this movie is set in Lovecraft Country. Old-school. That is, not related so much to the TV series as much as to the adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories made in the 1980s by director Stuart Gordon and starring the exceptionally game Crampton. (Remember “Re-Animator,” in which her character endured sexual assault from a reanimated corpse who did in fact hold his own head in his hands?) Adapted and gender-switched from the Lovecraft story The Thing on the Doorstep, “Suitable Flesh” has Crampton, as besieged and confused psych doctor Daniella Upton, going over her friend and colleague Elizabeth Derby’s tale of woe one more time, while Derby is confined to a room with padded walls in one of Miskatonic’s mental institutions.