Writer and Director: Carter Smith
Queer horror returns in the smart and sexy Swallowed. Like a cross between Alien and Wolf Creek, Carter Smith’s new film is also graced with a camp aesthetic, especially in the latter half of the film when Nightmare on Elm Street’s Mark Patton appears and when our young hero has to run around in nothing but his y-fronts.
But despite this saucy humour, Swallowed is most effective when it’s played straight and the start of the film begins like a classic chiller. Pretty-boy Ben is about to leave his home state of Maine and travel to L.A. to be a porn star. His best friend straight-boy Dom wants to make a monetary contribution. He doesn’t want Ben arriving in L.A. with empty pockets.
Dom sets out to smuggle drugs across the Canadian border for some quick cash. It should be a cinch, he tells Ben. But when they meet drug-runner Alice, their adventure takes a darker turn. Held at gunpoint, Dom and Ben are forced to swallow the drugs which are tightly packed in cellophane. Once over the border, they should wait at a rest stop while the bags make their own way out. Of course, the boys have no idea what drugs they are ingesting. Dom sweats with fear; Ben cries.
As they wait for nature to run its course, a brutal act of homophobia changes the sequence of events. These early scenes are the film’s finest moments, and the most unsettling to watch. But Smith has other plans for his movie, and a wry humour begins to sneak in. Dom may need the hospital but the drugs have given him a raging erection.
The film gets camper the deeper into the forest they go with Patton playing the bitterest and creepiest of queens. Patton clearly relishes the role and can be free to be as outrageous as possible, unlike his part in Nightmare on Elm Street 2 when he was still ‘in the closet’. His portrayal of drug lord Rich as a grotesque Southern Belle in Swallowed is repulsive and captivating in equal measures.
This is a low budget horror and the cast is therefore small, but the acting is strong especially Jose Colon, who in his first ever role, plays Dom. His straight man is tough, but also conflicted too by the feelings that he has for Ben. Cooper Koch, naked or near-naked for the film’s second half, deals well with being objectified by Rich, and by the viewer, but he also proves to be more than eye-candy. Jena Malone gives badass Alice the faintest glimmers of sympathy, rounding up a group of characters who are all queer in some way. Smith knows his audience.
The only problem with the film is its squeamishness. It would be wrong to reveal the film’s most horrific section, but Carter shies away from making these scenes graphic. Blankets are strategically placed, and everything is a little too easy, a little too clean. Just like the porn movies, it’s a good job that these boys never forgot to douche.
The Chambermaid is screening at BFI Flare 2023 from 15-26 March.
