Swallowedis a horror movie by writer/directorCarter Smith, who previously directedThe Ruins. The film’s premise concerns Benjamin (Cooper Koch) and the man he has a crush on, Dom (Jose Colon), becoming drug mules. Complications arise when Alice (Jena Malone), Dom’s contact, forces them to swallow the drugs in a condom. Circumstances lead to the two being terrorized by Alice’s brother and drug lord Rich (Mark Patton), in a remote cabin.
Smith toldFangoriathat while looking for financiers for the film, their reaction was, “We love this script so much; it’s tender and it’s scary and it’s gross. But maybe bring it to us when you have a finished film. We can’t really invest right now.”
“Yeah, I’ve always been a genre fan and I’ve always been queer, and those two things always kind of ran parallel to each other and never intersected. I mean, there was that one moment inA Nightmare on Elm Street 2where they did, and there have been a couple of other places. But I just felt like if I was going to make a movie that’s mine, something that is one hundred percent from me—and of course, it’s also for audiences and other people—but I’m gonna tell the story with the sort of characters I’m interested in exploring, who are going through the kind of stuff that either I’ve gone through or people I know have gone through, and not having to ‘straight it up’ or tone things down.”
Speaking ofFreddy’s Revenge, Patton was always Smith’s first choice for the role of Rich. Seeing his performance as Jesse Walsh was the first time Smith saw someone he identified with when he was young. Then, after seeing thedocumentaryScream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, Smith thought, “that guy belongs in a movie being closer to himself, who he is now.” So he wrote Rich with Patton in mind and started messaging the actor over Instagram.
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Playing With Gender and Sexuality in Swallowed
Films have a long history of depicting villains who are either queer or heavily implied to be so. Disney has become somewhat infamous for queer coding its iconic villains. A practice that audiences have become more critical of in recent years. One of the things that Smith discussed with Fangoria about Rich, agay villain, is having that type of character become a “camp stereotype.”
“Well, I think some stereotypes are in place because there are things that are stereotypes because they’re true, you know? There’s truth in them. With Rich specifically, I wanted to verify he wasn’t a black-and-white character. I mean, yes, it’s easy to hate him, but I also wanted him to have a humanity, where you may understand that he hasn’t had things easy, and he maybe grew up in a different time and has gone through shit. Not to excuse anything he does in the film, but morally, it’s kind of a grey area when you’re dealing with some of the choices he makes and the things he instigates. And also, Rich is such a self-posturing guy. For him, everything he does is a performance. In a way, he’s used to being this backwoods flamboyant badass, and a big part of his life is performative. He’s kind of putting something on—a character he’s created to survive where he does.”
Another character written with their actor in mind for the role was Alice. Malone and Smith had previously worked together inThe Ruins, which was Smith’s directorial debut, and had talked about doing something again sometime.Swallowedwas filmed at a cabin owned by Smith’s parents, which Malone had previously visited, so he said, “You want to come back to Maine? I’ll cook some really good food for us, and we’ll make a little movie. We might not have all the trappings, but it’ll be fun!” That seemed to have worked.
“Well, I wasn’t actually thinking about [how in a typical movie, you’d expect Alice to be portrayed by a man] specifically. I was just thinking about the idea that she’s the toughest, most badass character. Because to me, yes, that probably is a man, but Alice is the most intimidating person in the film. She makes me nervous, she makes me uncomfortable, and I think that’s interesting; in a movie with a lot of testosterone, it was great to have that element mixed in.”
Swallowedis currently available on VOD and digital platforms.
