Swallowed (2022)

With the hunky “Ben” (Cooper Koch) about to head off to the city to make his fortune as a gay porn star, his lifelong pal “Dom” (Jose Colon) concocts a wheeze to raise him some extra cash. Thing is, though, when they meet up with “Alice” (Jena Malone) they don’t quite like what she proposes. She isn’t the prevaricating type, though, and so soon these two boys have consumed something that everyone hopes the border guards won’t find en route to Canada. A pit stop at a toilet en route sees things get complicated for “Dom” and then “Alice” reappears to save the day by taking them to a remote woodland cabin where they encounter their menacingly camp-as-Christmas boss “Rich” (Mark Patton) who knows that what they swallowed isn’t quite what they thought they had swallowed! Now by this point, poor old “Dom” can’t get rid of these packages by himself, so it falls to “Ben” to pretend he is James Herriot and as tensions rise, he begins to wonder if he is going to survive this ordeal. It’s surreal nonsense this film, but I did quite enjoy the last half hour as the glamorous Koch wanders around the woods in his tiny-whities being pursued by a sort of pink panther that might have made Blake Edwards blush. There’s some nudity, and for a change it isn’t obscured by plants or curtains or cushions; indeed the aptly named Colon gives much for his art! There might have been more of an horror aspect to this, but that’s largely undercooked as the story quite disappointingly fizzles out, but I’ve seen so many drab and dreary “cabin in the woods” style of drama - including the only other gay-themed “Knock at the Cabin” (2023) that I can think of, that this actually holds up remarkably well in an easy on the eye fashion. Acting? Well Malone does ok for a while as the feisty pusher and Patton hams up nicely but in the end it’s all about the boy and he doesn’t disappoint!