From the mind of out director Carter Smith comes the queer body horror film Swallowed. It's a film that, between the squirm-inducing scenes, is about friendship, love, and romance.
The film stars Cooper Koch and Jose Colon as two friends who take on a risky adventures before Koch's character Benjamin leaves for Los Angeles to pursue a career in gay adult film.
Many horror fans know Smith's The Ruins, a Jena Malone-led body horror film in which a group of young people finds themselves trapped among bloodthirsty and body-colonizing carnivorous plants.
In Swallowed, Malone appears again, this time as a villain.
Queer love is a central motivator in the film, the stakes of which feel real. It also lends itself to breaking with tradition and giving the film a final (gay) boy. This adds a delicious bit of irony when the third act introduces actor Mark Patton, arguably the original queer final boy. Patton's most notable role was that of Jesse Walsh in the overtly queer-coded A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (and the recent documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street about his experience with the film -- and its fallout).
Swallowed premieres on digital and on-demand on February 14 — the perfect Valentine’s Day treat for the bug-eyed queer horror fan in your life.
Catch an exclusive clip of the film below.
