After a drug run goes bad, two friends must survive a nightmarish ordeal of drugs, bugs, and horrific intimacy. A film by Carter Smith, starring Cooper Koch, Jose Colon, Jena Malone, Hannah Perry, and Mark Patton.
SWALLOWED
Carter Smith
(2023)
Dom (Jose Colon) takes his childhood best friend Benjamin (Cooper Koch) out to a bar to celebrate Benjamin’s new job offer. Benjamin has just been hired by an adult gay film studio, and he sees this as his ticket out of their small town and his chance to pursue fame and fortune.
Dom wants to give Benjamin some cash as a going-way gift, so he agrees to do a drug run for his relative Dee (Hannah Perry). However, when they arrive at the meeting point, they are surprised to find Alice (Jena Malone), who’s handling this particular delivery operation.
Sensing something isn’t right, Dom tries to back out, but Alice pulls a gun on them. She forces them to swallow small plastic bags filled with drugs and orders them to make the delivery as planned. She promises they will get their agreed payment once the job is done.
On their way to the delivery point, Dom makes a restroom stop and gets attacked – taking a hard punch to his stomach. Soon after, he experiences severe abdominal pain, fearing that the impact might have ruptured the plastic bags, releasing the drugs inside. However, they soon uncover a terrifying reality: the substance they were forced to swallow isn’t drugs at all, but something alive.
Written and directed by American filmmaker Carter Smith, the film’s initial plot and atmosphere convince viewers they’re watching a crime thriller about drug trafficking. But an unexpected twist shifts the narrative into thrilling horror territory.
The screenplay disappointingly fails to explore the potential of the new creature to deepen the horror elements. Instead, it focuses on creating a gloomy atmosphere through interactions between Rich (Mark Patton), who plays a psychotic crime boss, and Benjamin, whose character undergoes an unbelievably drastic transformation. The meandering dialogue makes the film drag on, making even its modest 92-minute runtime feel much longer.
SWOLLOWED premiered at the Fantasia Festival on 15 July 2022. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 14 February 2023, and was simultaneously made available on VOD on the same day, by Momentum Pictures.
