Swallowed is a 2022 American independentbody horror film written and directed by Carter Smith. The film stars Cooper Koch, Jose Colon, Jena Malone, and Mark Patton. It follows two friends who, on their final night out, end up smuggling a wrapped substance, via swallowing, that ends up going awry. The film premiered at the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival, and was released in the United States on February 14, 2023. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances, tension, and exploration of queer themes, but criticized its pacing and tonal shifts.
Two friends, Benjamin and Dom, are celebrating their last night together before Ben flies to Los Angeles to become a gay porn star. Dom drives them to do a drug run to Canada to make some money to help Ben set in LA.
Their contact, Alice, forces them to swallow five condoms holding the drugs: Dom swallows four and Ben swallows the fifth. Across the border, the pair go to a rest stop where Dom begins to experience stomach pains and passes one of his four packages. Alice meets the two men and drives them to her boss, Rich and explains that the drug bundles are larvae with venomous bites that get people high.
Ben extracts all but one of Dom's packages which has burst inside him. Dom overdoses from the larvae bites and dies. Rich shoots Alice and then tries to seduce Ben, who stabs him with tweezers and flees where he passes his larvae cache. Ben goes back to the cabin where he sees and watches Rich dump Alice's body in the outhouse well. Ben has his passed larvae bite Ben and he throws him down the outhouse well.
Over the credits, Ben is seen being interviewed on the red carpet at pornography awards, where he is up for best newcomer. He emotionally thanks "all the people who believed in me".
...For me to put it front and centre and to make a film that is 100% unabashedly from a queer point of view with queer characters, in a story that isn't necessarily about them being queer, is really meaningful.
— Carter Smith on the emphasis of the film's gay perspective.[1]
Writer-director Carter Smith had wanted to make a low-budget film akin to a directorial debut, in contrast to his own feature debut The Ruins (2008).[2] Upon writing, Smith had written the role of Rich for Mark Patton, while The Ruins collaborator and friend Jena Malone was the first choice he had in mind for Alice. Additionally, Jose Colon was cast after previously starring in a photoshoot series for Smith's gay-centric All the Dead Boys banner, while Cooper Koch was cast by Smith immediately upon viewing his audition tape.[1]
It was filmed in Maine, where Smith had lived previously; the cabin used was built by his father.[1]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 51 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "Although its second half is difficult to digest, Swallowed is an admirably unusual – and overall effective – mixture of body horror and romance."[7]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[8]
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