It’s here that the body horror kicks, with a terrified Benjamin watching helplessly as Dom succumbs to excruciating pain, bizarre symptoms, and gross-out revelations. Her fierce urgency instills dread that only increases as every single bit of her careful instructions get derailed by mishaps and events outside of the best friends’ control. Her tough-as-nails drug dealer character, Alice, holds Dom and Benjamin at gunpoint, forcing the pair to smuggle strange bundles of drugs across the border into Canada by swallowing them. Smith, who wrote the film, enlists The Ruins’ collaborator Jena Malone to bring the necessary intensity to kick things into high gear.
Jena Malone as Alice in Carter Smith’s SWALLOWED.
