Small horror film that had had some impact on its release – especially on networks – Swalowed now arrives in France on the platform Shadowz. The opportunity to look at this proposal of body horror, riding between the thriller and pure horror.
Love, glory & beauty
Lost at the end of Maine, two long-time friends – Benjamin (Cooper Koch) and Dom (particularly well-appointed for the role Jose Colon) – celebrate their last night together. Indeed, Ben wishes to extirpate from his provincial milieu after piercing into gay porn online. He wants to pull his pin out of the game and for this aims at the tentacular Los Angeles, where glory seems to be waiting... In secret, Dom agreed to transport a small amount of drugs across the border they are about to cross in order to help his friend in the beginnings of his new life.
Except bad surprise! Arriving there, they realize that their contact, Alice (the great Jena Malone that we've loved since Donnie Darko) packed the drug in condoms that will have to swallow. His gun will eventually convince them to obey orders... Problem, the drug they contain turns out to be alive, and the latex containers that are not resistant to the intestinal journey they are about to cross...
Melon hat & queer boots
First film where Carter Smith holds the three key roles of director, screenwriter and producer, he has Swalowed a very small budget. Placed at the crossroads of genres – it would rather be a horrific thriller tinted with fantastic than a pure horror film – Swalowed fun to use the horror codes of past decades but in a world borrowed from current societal codes. The representation of the queer characters in particular, resolutely modern, which attached to the director as he himself explains:
« For me, making a film that is without hesitation 100% from the point of view of queer characters, in a story that does not necessarily concern the fact of being queer, is really significant... »
The geographical location of the feature film, lost in the limbos of an impoverished America, dumped between unfathomable forests and malfamous villages, contributes to the distilled atmosphere in the first half. As much the scenario centered on a drug story, the gargot lost in the middle of nowhere as the small palette of tricky characters presented at the beginning of the film tint Swalowed a Twin Peaks. Brumous and threatening, while remaining irretrievably familiar.
The part lasts to swallow
And if this first segment convinces easily, in particular by the tension that settles and this disturbing substance transported to the side of William Friedkin and its Bug, Swalowed becomes as its second half becomes a little more indigestible. The film will in fact gradually crystallize between the four walls of a chalet – whose context we will hardly reveal any more – thus imposing a good half hour of redescent, both in terms of rhythm and of the interest it brings to history. The trajectories of the characters, sewn with white thread, will find it difficult to convince and the multiplication of the scenes of the frontal nudes l exploitation of the 1960s, which only a simple translation of current societal codes will make it possible to distinguish.
Fortunately, the film succeeds in closing in a more interesting way, even if it remains a little on its hunger for the future of the substance in question. In short, we must throw ourselves into Swalowed without waiting for a pure ultra-gore horror film – although some sequences have much to cut off appetite – and forgive him a bit of a plan-plan intermediate segment. It remains a visually interesting feature film and a story that will captivate the attention of its spectator, already two beautiful promises to put to the account of Carter Smith whose career will continue in August with the release on the platforms of his next horror film, The Passenger (in particular by Jason Blum). Case to follow...
Another curiosity that has all its place on Shadowz! ^^^
Have you ever seen Bug, Arthur?
It is mentioned in criticism. Absolutely excellent.
Another intriguing movie on Shadowz! I should be interested...
[...] no miser of good horrific shots, the recent Blackwaters, Les Ruines (by the director of Swallowed) or Mister Babadook are some obvious examples... Unfortunately, the duo [...]