Reviews
[REVIEW] ‘Swallowed’ Delivers Painfully Effective Body Horror
Body horror is in some ways marred by its typical conventions, but more often than not, by supernatural circumstances. The preeminent examples of the genre are special effects driven spectacles about gory or absurd things happening to unfortunate characters and their even more unfortunate physical forms. Such as Hellraiser, Society, or The Thing, something detached from reality where flesh is horribly deformed or sculpted into something beyond recognition. And you cannot find me complaining about that, I will forever praise those movies for their technical achievements and effectiveness. But some of the best body horror is the uncomfortably realistic horror, not monsters from beyond space and between realms, but agonizingly real physical experiences, with agonizing emotions behind them sold by the actors portraying it. Swallowed is one of those experiences.
A Dangerous Send Off
For Ben, it’s the final night in his dreary hometown; he’s moving to Hollywood, not to be your typical actor, but to become an adult film star. For Dom, feelings torn by his love for Ben, it’s the last big outing in a small place with his best friend. In a ploy to give Ben a going away present and set him up with cash for the big move, Dom attempts to smuggle a package of drugs across the Canadian border.
At the pickup however, Ben ends up roped into carrying the drugs as well after being held at gunpoint. What they end up swallowing isn’t your typical fix, and the contents of the packages they carry put both of their lives in danger.
Carter Smith’s Directorial Evolution
Looking back on Swallowed doesn’t show Smith’s rapid growth as a director, but just a completely different vibe altogether; the aesthetic qualities here are reminiscent of Jeremy Saulnier’s directing above all else, rather than a less developed iteration of the directing skills he would show off in The Passenger. It’s intimate and romantic in some respects, but also grimy and tense at the same time; it can dial between calm and panicked with the smoothest of transitions.
Naturalistic lighting abounds with a muted color palette and cool tones that cast a shade of visually communicated misfortune for our characters. And by the time it’s over, there is a lingering emotional exhaustion from it crawling through your optic nerves that takes a bit to settle down.
Cinematography and Visual Style
Jena Malone’s acidic acting as the slimy drug dealer underling Alice is nothing to scoff at either, as she delivers a pretty biting aura to the screen in her skittish movements and scattered angry insults. Her conflict with Ben and Dom is very believable on a regrettably familiar level, portraying in earnest the films’ themes of an uncaring society that often turns its nose up in disgust at not just gay men, but gay sex workers in particular.
Mark Patton’s Memorable Role
He’s sinister and truly lecherous in every letter of the word, deranged in how normally he treats his own cruelty as a passing quirk of the job. His complete dissociation with the harm he’s doing as he carves away at bits of Ben’s dignity and security is infuriating and effective.
Pacing and Structural Flaws
The ending stutters and deflates some of the emotional charge it built up, with the last two scenes feeling like they should have been completely reversed in order, as the penultimate one is by far more effective as a final shot than the big and clumsily depicted moment of revenge we get before the title card.
Ultimately, it’s the addition of issues like these that make this movie hard for me to outright love, but it’s impossible for me to say I dislike it either. With Smith delivering a disquieting experience in what was very clearly a passion project in trying to disturb the viewer, Swallowed ends up being every bit as tactile as its name would suggest.
A24 never stopped pumping out banger horror movies. Let’s get that out of the way, straight away. Even its commercial and critical flops, like Opus or Y2K, still took a lot of really original swings, even if it hasn’t been a string of masterpieces like in their horror heyday of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Still, they may have made their scariest yet with Undertone, in a return to A24’s original MO of pure indie filmmaking.
A Single Location Horror Film Powered by Sound
Undertone is not a perfect movie, with an occasional off story beat, and the ending just missing the mark of perfection, but it is a tried-and-true testament to the power of storytelling. With essentially one active, on-screen actress and a single location, the film manages to create a sensory hellscape with immersive nightmare-inducing audio that has both story and scares derived entirely from a podcast. It is a sensory overload of pure terror, one that feels deeply sinister in its pitch-black story, one that demands to be seen in the darkest possible movie theater.
A24’s Undertone: A True Crime Podcast Turns Supernatural
The story is pretty straightforward…at least at first. It follows a true crime/horror podcast host (Nina Kiry), who lives by herself as she takes care of her dying, elderly, and borderline vegetative mother. Her co-host (Adam DiMarco, who is never fully seen) is sent a series of ten mysterious audio files from an unknown address, presumably sent for her to listen to on the show. As they begin to record their latest episode with live reactions to the files, reality slips further as she and her co-host fall into supernatural delirium. Strange noises, slipping time, and other haunted house trimmings all come out to play, each elevated by (as mentioned) horrific sound design and an even more horrific backstory.
Nursery Rhyme Origins and Deeply Disturbing Mythology
The story is about 95% airtight. Without getting too deep into spoilers, the origins of these files and their meaning are deeply fascinating, with some elements and angles involving the origins of nursery rhymes that are very, genuinely disturbing. There is one twist in particular that explores what one of the sounds truly means, which is highly upsetting once pieced together.
That being said, Undertone has some familiar tropes, and while the movie mostly touches upon certain unexplored mythology, certain scenes can feel a little too familiar to other recent demon movies like Shelby Oaks. The true meanings are a lot more creative, but it could have played around with its mythos to create a truly original villain.
Undertone’s Ambiguous Ending Demands a Rewatch
Similarly, the ending is almost perfect. There is a final twist about something the protagonist might have done that is a little confusing, and reframes the context of the film. It is highly interesting, however, and opens up several cans of worms of what this movie has to say about children, motherhood, and parenthood as a whole, as well as posing questions about the movie’s setting and timeline. It is always better to remain vague in horror, which this movie definitely does, but just a slight retweak of its final act could give the audience just the tiniest more understanding, without it going into full, mainstream territory. The film definitely requires a second watch, and in the best way possible.
A Groundbreaking Podcast Horror Experience
In a nutshell, the film’s methods of storytelling are groundbreaking. This movie is not a podcast, but all of its scares and stories are delivered to us like it is one. It feels like the birth of a new medium or style of movie, a perfect blend of audio and visual, with emphasis on the audio.
Additionally, with the story being literally told to us as if we’re listening to the characters’ podcast itself, it is a nightmare rabbit hole.
Like many people born in the mid-90s, the Sci-Fi Channel was one of my first introductions to horror. Whether it was random films playing or Sci-Fi’s 31 Days of Halloween, this channel was one of the main channels in my household. For the month of March, we’re going to take a look at Sci-Fi Originals (and maybe I cheated a bit and picked films that had their premiere on Sci-Fi). Picking films for this month was no easy task. Did I want to cover one of the plethora of amalgamated mega-animals fighting each other? Or what about shark tornadoes? One of the films I picked, after finding it too difficult to find Children of the Corn (2009) on streaming services, was an odd alien film I had never even heard of. That film is Silent Warnings.
What is Silent Warnings About?
Layne Vossimer (A.J. Buckley), his girlfriend Macy (Callie De Fabry), and a group of their friends head to Layne’s cousin’s house, Joe (Stephen Baldwin), after his mysterious death. Once there, they find the house in disgusting disarray. The friends decide to help Layne clean it up in order to put it on the market. But things quickly go south when they find a series of VHS tapes Joe left behind in the attic. What’s revealed in those tapes shows something that’s out of this world. Can Layne, his friends, and Sheriff Bill Willingham (Billy Zane) fend off these otherworldly invaders before it’s too late?
Conspiracy Theories, Mental Health, and Paranoia in Silent Warnings
As stated, this film was a late pick as I could not find 2009’s Children of the Corn streaming anywhere. Boy, am I glad I picked this. Silent Warnings has its fair share of issues. But it makes up for them in so many ways. This film is a very sober look into conspiracy theories, mental health, and the lengths that people go to when it comes to perceived threats. We get very little Stephen Baldwin, but what we do get is more than enough. He’s a recluse who lives on his 40-ish-acre property that’s been alien-proofed. His best friend (cousin?) is a scarecrow that has an AK-47. And he constantly records incoherent ramblings with his camcorder. Baldwin absolutely kills in his limited screentime. It’s like Stanislavski said, there are no small parts, only small actors.
Small-Town Horror and UFO Lore in Porterville
The quaint town of Porterville acts as the perfect backdrop for a story like this: a sleepy, nowhere town, where most people know each other. A town where the big call of the day for the Sheriff is about a missing dog. It’s the perfect setup for a story like this. It even mirrors many of the towns mentioned in Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. Much of this film’s atmosphere, the crop circles, acres of corn, and the disintegrating house, create a condensed world that adds so much claustrophobia to the film’s soul.
Acting, Dialogue, and the Problem with Early 2000s CGI Aliens
That being said, there are quite a few issues. Mainly, the acting. Besides Kim Onasch, Michelle Borth, Billy Zane, and A.J. Buckley (mostly), much of this film’s acting feels very Sci-Fi Original. It doesn’t help that the film’s dialogue, from writers Bill Lundy, Christian McIntire, and Kevin Gendreau, is just plain boring. And that’s not even mentioning how awful the CGI aliens look. A 2003 film about aliens, when only two or three are shown on screen, should be fully practical. And the fact that they use digital aliens takes away much of the film’s punch.
Why Silent Warnings Is an Underrated Sci-Fi Original
Silent Warnings doesn’t break much ground when it comes to the topic of aliens/Ufology, but it’s damn entertaining. But that’s the thing. Films don’t necessarily need to break new ground. I appreciate the swings this film takes, whether they hit or miss. There’s a wonderful setup with Stephen Baldwin, and the slow build to an exciting finale makes it all worth the wait. For a Sci-Fi Original, Silent Warnings has worked its way into my heart.
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 57: Backrooms & Jigglyspot
‘Undertone’ Review: A24’s Scariest Since ‘Hereditary’
‘Silent Warnings’ (2003) Review: An Unknown UFO Gem
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[REVIEW] ‘Cherry Falls’ (1999) Brittany Murphy Shines in This Cult Classic Slasher
