Swallowed **½ (2022, Cooper Koch, Jena Malone, Jose Colon, Mark Patton) – Classic Movie Review 12,458

The 2022 low-budget nightmare film Swallowed is overall an acceptably involving and exciting queer horror thriller about drugs and bugs from writer/ director Carter Smith, the director of the 2008 chiller The Ruins.

Cooper Koch and Jose Colon star as Benjamin [Ben] and Dom, best friends since childhood. Benjamin has been in love with straight guy Dom for almost that long. But Benjamin is heading off to Los Angeles to pursue a new career as a gay porn star. So Dom thoughtfully concocts a plan to make Benjamin some quick cash to take with him.

All they have to do is a quick drug run across the border. Soon the boys get cold feet when the going gets tough and the duo want to get going. But the bad guys have other ideas. And then, horror of horrors, the bags of ‘drugs’ they are forced to swallow at gunpoint by drug-runner Alice (Jena Malone) for their smuggling trip turn out to be something far more deadly than they ever could have imagined. They end up at the remote cabin property of evil Rich (Mark Patton), a shockingly unpleasant gay stereotype villain. When Benjamin finally fights back, most everyone will be on his side.

Cooper Koch makes a very personable hero, and mans up nicely in the film’s third act, going from sweet and charming to hard and vengeful convincingly. Jena Malone makes an extremely tough and nasty drug-runner, with no redeeming features, not melting just around the point when you think she might have a heart of gold. Mark Patton makes an irredeemable, super-nasty drug dealer, though his gay stereotype character seems quite a bit dodgy.

Carter Smith’s script may not be entirely credible, or 100 per cent successful, but you can certainly go along with it for the ride. You can swallow it. It is creepy, effective and different enough, building to an impactful climax. His direction is swift and suspenseful, and the film is attractively shot by Alex Wolf Lewis on location in Maine, with a strong underlying score by Christopher Bear to accompany it, and a cute song beginning and end.

Cooper Koch.

The full frontal male nudity is perhaps not entirely necessary to the plot, but as Cooper Koch has got it, he might as well flaunt it. He is playing a gay porn star after all. Those expecting body horror with the bugs theme will be disappointed. It’s a thriller. I was going to say it’s a straight thriller. But, really, it’s more of a gay thriller. Queer horrors and gay thrillers are very neglected areas of cinema. So Swallowed is quite welcome.

Carter Smith said: ‘For me to put the film’s gay perspective front and centre, and to make a film that is 100 per cent unabashedly from a queer point of view with queer characters, in a story that isn’t necessarily about them being queer, is really meaningful.’

It is shot in Maine, where Carter used to live, and the cabin used in the film was built by his father.

Swallowed premiered at the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival, and was released by Momentum Pictures in the US on digital on 14 February 2023. It has also played at BFI Flare, FrightFest, and The Overlook Film Festival.

Blue Finch Film Releasing presents Swallowed on digital download 24 April.

Cert: 18. Runtime: 92 minutes.

The cast are Cooper Koch as Benjamin, Jose Colon as Dom, Jena Malone as Alice, Mark Patton as Rich, Roe Pacheco as a Border Officer, Michael Curtis as Randy Redneck, Jonathan Spence as Thee Suburbia (themself), and Hannah Berry as Dee.

Talking queer horror, Carter Smith also directed the 2019 Into the Dark TV series film Midnight Kiss.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,458

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