Swallowed

Swallowed features great acting, especially from Malone, and a truly intense final act that must be seen to be believed.

Swallowed is an LGBTQ+ thriller that trades complexity for intimacy over a drug run gone horribly wrong. It's intense and thrilling at the right moments, capitalizing on authentic body horrors.

As the title suggests, Swallowed gives you something to chew on, but apart from a few shining and delicious morsels, it’s less of a feast and more of an underwhelming meal.

Swallowed is slow-paced and often aggressively unpleasant — unless your idea of a good time is watching people moan in pain for minutes on end while clutching their stomachs. But it’s a memorably intense experience, with sharp points to make about how the lives of outsiders and outlaws can tip in an instant into sloppy chaos.

Film feels like a great extention of topics and motives raised by Bugcrush with a new take on genuine love, i would say. Despite being quite straightforward in what it is from the very beginning, it doesn't let you down as a viewer. Bromance dynamics is interestingly explored, so Carter Smith remains loyal to his artistic credo: to create things that are attractive and disgusting at the same time, making you unsure whether you want to look at them or look away.

I can respect the ambition, but when you're trying to cover so much ground, the things you put on screen need to have more coherence, and the very concept lends itself to the kind of diversification the director was trying to accomplish, but it's of little use if you're only halfway there. Swallowed has its fair share of darkness and nasty moments, but it seems afraid to go further. I don't know if it was a budgetary or script decision, and it's not because that darkness implies a certain level of violence, but when you've already hinted at something more explicit, then go for it, because as a result it's inevitable to feel like the film is missing something else that could make it really stand out.