Director Joe Lynch’s (Wrong Turn 2, Mayhem, “Creepshow”) new movie Suitable Flesh, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing On The Doorstep, is set to unleash body-hopping madness in theaters and VOD on October 27, 2023.

Heather Graham and producer Barbara Crampton star in Suitable Flesh, executive produced by Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator). Dennis Paoli, the writer of Re-Animator and From Beyond, wrote the script. 

Joe Lynch and the late Stuart Gordon’s frequent collaborators seamlessly insert Suitable Flesh into Gordon’s Lovecraftian universe (our review) but give it a slight twist in gender-flipping archetypical Lovecraft roles. Bloody Disgusting spoke with Joe Lynch, Heather Graham, and Barbara Crampton out of Tribeca earlier this year, before the SAG-AFTRA strike, where they discussed how Lynch came to direct Suitable Flesh and taking on these rare roles.

It was Barbara Crampton, a producer on Suitable Flesh, who reached out to Joe Lynch about helming the new feature. Crampton reveals that Lynch wasn’t just her top pick to direct but Stuart Gordon’s pick as well.

She explains, “Joe is a very full filmmaker. His movies are always fun. There’s always a lot going on, and I think that’s true of Stuart’s movies. I mean, they’re bold and provocative and wild and somehow a little weird sometimes, and that’s Joe stuff. When I talked to Stuart a couple of years ago, I said, ‘Who do you think is working today that’s similar to your style of stuff?’ Maybe it was a precursor to talking to him later when we got hold of the script, and we wanted to make it; he said, ‘Oh, I really think Joe Lynch is a similar type of filmmaker.‘ I had that in the back of my head, and then Joe and I became friends.”

Crampton continues, “After Stuart passed, I had a conversation with Dennis Paoli, and I said, ‘I really just want to continue my legacy of Lovecraft. Did you guys have anything that was sitting on a shelf that you never did?’ He sent the script to me; it was called The Thing on the Doorstep, as the original story is called. I read it, and I immediately loved it. Immediately.

“Joe was one of the first people I thought of. I mean, I did send it just to do due diligence to a few other directors, and we talked to a few people, but Joe was always at the top of my list, and he’s who I wanted, and if he said yes, it was going to be his. Then, when he said, ‘Yes, I want to make this movie with you guys,’ with AMP Films, who is the production company that I’ve been working with for the past few years, I said, ‘This is no longer a Stuart Gordon film, it’s a Joe Lynch film, so you have to put your stamp on it and do what you want to do.'”

Suitable Flesh follows Psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Graham), a wholesome career woman who has it all until Asa Waite (Judah Lewis) crashes into her life as a troubled patient suffering from an extreme personality disorder. Or does he? That encounter puts Dr. Derby on a wild body-hopping ride fueled by sex and carnage, presenting an unconventional role for Graham. It was Lynch’s idea to gender flip his lead character, which led to Graham’s casting.

Graham shares why she was so excited to play Dr. Derby: “Yeah, as a woman reading a script, it was just so exciting to get this script because Lovecraft’s story was written about a man, and he switched the character to a woman, and so it was so refreshing to get to be the protagonist of this kind of story, which is scary and a neurotic thriller, and I get this opportunity to do so many different fun things. In these stories, exploring sexuality, it’s not usually the woman’s protagonist story. Usually, they’re the object, or they’re the person being cheated on. So, to explore a woman getting herself into a bad situation from her point of view, it’s pretty rare, actually. So, I’m so grateful for having this opportunity.”

The central friendship between Dr. Derby and her colleague-turned-confidant Daniella Upton (Crampton) serves as an emotional backbone and gives both actors interesting dynamics to play with the more the horror ensues. But that very nearly might not have been the case.

Crampton reveals, “At first I wasn’t going to be in it. Then we were thinking about who we were going to cast for Heather’s friend, and then we just had multiple conversations, and somebody said, I’m not going to say who, ‘I think you should play the part, Barbara.’ I went, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Then I asked Joe, and I said, ‘Well, what do you think? I don’t know.’

Lynch, also on hand for this interview, interjects, “All right, can I be honest?” While Crampton hadn’t initially considered herself for a role in Suitable Flesh, the director certainly did.

Lynch confesses, “I wanted to ask you since day one, but I remember you were just like, ‘I just want to be the producer on this.’ And I thought I’m not going to tell you what to do. You’re Barbara Crampton, you’re my boss now. But secretly, in the back of my head, I always wanted to see that dynamic because there are certain scenes where this becomes a showdown. To watch these two powerful women square off to each other, not just in a physical sensibility but in a mental sensibility. But we also needed two people who you could believe could be friends. That was tantamount to the entire film.”

“Early on, we were watching White Christmas, and there’s this beautiful song called ‘Sisters’ in it, and at one point, we were trying to get that in the movie, but it was way too expensive. But that sensibility of these two women who were best friends, maybe there’s more to their dynamic than is even on the page,” Lynch continues. “But we wanted to explore that. To watch these two characters and these two powerful actors embody them, it needed to be believable. The second that Barbara texted me, the relief on my face, I could tell, was just like, ‘Oh, thank God she said it and not me.’ Because it was a no-brainer at that point.”

Don’t miss Crampton and Graham in rare form when Suitable Flesh arrives in theaters and VOD this Friday.