Halloween 2020: October 3rd

Swallow (2020)

2020 has been an interesting year for my mental health, which I'm sure has been true for everybody. I decided to get a grip on the psychological issues that have fucked up my whole life just months before a pandemic ravaged the globe. Apocalyptic anxieties aside, I think I do have a better understanding of my O.C.D. and etcetera now.  The interest in what makes the illness tick brought me to “Swallow,” a 2020 release about pica. I don't have any personal experience with this compulsion to swallow objects you really shouldn't swallow. (Though I know people who do.) I certainly know that it's like to feel controlled by illogical thoughts. So I wanted to check out “Swallow” and the trailer made it look gruesome enough to qualify for the Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-thon. 

Hunter Conrad should be living the dream. She recently married Richie, the rich and handsome son of a powerful Manhattan businessman. Yet Richie and his family are controlling and Hunter finds married life stifling. Upon discovering she's pregnant, the desire to swallow small, rigid objects – a marble, a battery, a thumbtack – grows inside her. At first, Hunter's strange new addiction is gratifying. Soon, however, her husband discovers the habit, forcing her to make some drastic choices. Hunter must confront her own impulses, her past, and her present. 

What most impresses me about “Swallow” is how accurately it captures the feeling of a compulsion, that strange mixture of longing, elation, and shame at the center of it. Hunter obsesses over the objects, considering the small items for a long time until they consume her thoughts. Finally, she gives in and swallows them, immediately feeling an immense sense of relief. Yet the satisfaction is short-lived. The bloody aftereffect of digesting a jagged object – which the film depicts in surprisingly graphic detail – brings with it an intense sense of shame. Hunter thoroughly cleans the bathroom after each time, as if trying to wipe away that feeling of regret. Soon afterwards, she proudly displays each item she has passed, almost like she's proud of the accomplishment. And the cycle begins again. Anyone who has lived with obsessive-compulsive thoughts – for me, it was skin-picking – will recognize this pattern. “Swallow” earns a lot of points for not shying away from the grossness of the habit but also for showing why it is so addictive. 

Hunter isn't only at the whims of her impulses. From the beginning, her marriage is shown as practically loveless. Richie is distracted by work calls at dinner. When asked to share a story with his parents, Hunter is quickly talked over. When Richie discovers her pica, he profanely rants only about how it affects him. By the time Hunter is threatened with divorce unless she gets better, or has the privacy clause with her therapist violated, it's clear her husband only sees her as an accessory, not a person. The title's double meaning is revealed as we see how Hunter has been swallowed by the role of wife and mother, hoisted upon her. While it might be hard to sympathize with a poor little rich girl in 2020, Hunter is humanized by Haley Bennett's performance. Bennett creates a character wound so tightly, who is so quiet, you can easily infer all the pain she hides inside. When you've been swallowing patriarchal bullshit for so long, swallowing marbles and pins surely must seem like a preferable alternative.  

It's not just the script and performances that takes us within Hunter's world but also Carlo Mirabella-Davis' clever direction. “Swallow' begins with images of a lamb being butchered and cooked, which introduces us to the film's two main visual motifs: Food and the warm interiors of the flesh. Davis luxuriates so much visual polish on the inedible objects Hunter consumes, that they look as delicious as any fancy meal. Medical close-ups of a constricting esophagus or the bloody rings around a toilet bowl make us feel like we're inside a body, trapped alongside Hunter. This extends to the film's use of color. Hunter places a red screen over the soon-to-be nursery's window, casting the whole room in a red, inflamed light. This contrasts with the bright blues and greens around it, so vibrant they feel artificial. Whether swallowed by her own metaphorical flesh or kept under a plastic fish bowl sky, Hunter is trapped. It's no mistake that earthier, more natural colors are introduced the further away from her and Richie's home she gets. 

“Swallow” is an exceedingly strong debut with only one serious flaw. It too flatly explains the traumatic origins, the primordial lack of control, that shaped Hunter's neurosis. This leads to a somewhat disappointing climax, that too neatly resolves the protagonist's issues. Even with that being the case, “Swallow” is a compelling character study. It's well done enough that the image of a Jennifer Lawrence lookalike scarfing down handfuls of potting soil, or a bundle of screws, never becomes campy or a cheap gross-out. “Swallow” is also not really a horror film, though I imagine it'll probably make many of the people who watch it squirm. If you thin you, ahem, have the stomach for it. [8/10]

Awakening of the Beast (1970)

From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Though political opponents were rounded up and unperson'd, the arts largely escaped persecution. The Brazilian underground film movement – which, of course, Jose Mojita Marins was part of – flourished in the late sixties. However, as a new decade dawned, film and television started to be more heavily censored. Marins' most extreme film yet, “Awakening of the Beast” was filmed in 1970... And was immediately banned by the government. The film would go largely unseen until the nineties, when it started to be screened at festivals. Finally, a DVD release in 2003 would bring Marins' most demented vision to the public. 

“Awakening of the Beast” would also see Marins going meta for the first time. The story is framed like a television panel show, upon which filmmaker and cult icon Jose Mojica Marins is a guest. (The movie also includes several Coffin Joe comic books and even a pop song about the character,) The conversation is led by Dr. Sergio, a sociologist and expert in narcotics. He presents several new stories, depicting depraved acts performed while the users were high on various drugs. This proceeds Sergio's final experiment. He gathered together several drug-users from different shades of life, dosed them with LSD, and showed them a Zé do Caixão film. 

In his previous films, Marins' social commentary didn't extend much beyond his in-character rants about religion. “Awakening of the Beast,” however, saw him directly addressing the woes facing Brazil at the time. Despite detailing drug abuse and the associated criminal acts, “Awakening of the Beast” is not actually about drug addiction so much. Throughout the film, the “real” Jose is accused by the other panel guests of being a depraved agitator. We see his appearance on another talk show, in which he's put on a mock trial for his immoral crimes against polite society. (The real man is also repeatedly referred to as his fictional persona, a problem Marins actually seemed to have from time-to-time.) The film seems to be drawing a parallel between mind-alternating substances and mind-altering movies, the twist ending clearing both of wrong-doing. No wonder the government banned it: “Awakening of the Beast” indirectly says that drugs themselves are not the problem but instead incriminates the culture around them.

“Awakening of the Beast” also follows the proud tradition of shock movies from decades before. It ostensibly condemns drug-fueled depravity while also reveling in depictions of it. This gave the director an opportunity to create his most explicit images yet. The film opens with a woman shooting up, stripping down for greasy voyeurs, and then seemingly defecating in front of them. An extended sequence begins with a school girl smoking some grass with hippies and concludes with her being sexually violated to death by a man dressed as Christ. A coked-up woman sells her daughter into the sex trade and is then heavily implied to get intimate with her pet donkey. These sequences are so sleazy and sick that the other moments pale in comparison. Even then, during a scene where a woman goes into a job interview with a coke head, Marisn sneaks in some memorable images. The obese man scarfs down a plate of spaghetti while propositioning the woman, causing her to imagine him as a literal hog. 

The film summons up some real sleazy, transgressive energy for these moments of sexual violence and explicit drug use. Yet Marins saves the best for last. He takes us inside the experiment participant's heads as they trip balls, following a screening of “This Night, I'll Possess Your Corpse.” As in that film, Marins employs the trick of switching from black-and-white to color. The acid trip sequence has the director putting his most bizarre images yet on screen. We see a spider with a woman's head for a body. A crucifix made up of different heads appear. Creatures created by painting faces on exposed buttocks show up, blowing smoke from their “mouths.” There's even a monster created by putting make-up on a penis. If these bizarre images weren't enough already, there's lots of searing bright colors, shooting flames, torture and sadism. And grandiose speeches from Coffin Joe, the focal point of this depraved phantasma. 

Truly, nobody created images of low budget, sleazy damnation quite like Jose Mojica Marins. “Awakening of the Beast's” blending together of social commentary, exploitation movie nastiness, horror movie shocks, inventive low budget filmmaking, and off-the-wall surrealism makes the film one of the director's best. And the meta touches – the film concludes with the director directly breaking the fourth wall –  are interesting as well. This might be why, when Fantoma released its Coffin Joe box set in 2003, they slotted this film in as the third corner of the “trilogy.” This has made the film among the best known of the  Zé do Caixão series. [8/10]

Tales of the Unexpected: The Landlady

In the U.S., Roald Dahl is best known as a children's author. However, there's more to his writing than just Oompa-Loompas, giant peaches, and pint-sized telekinetics. Aboard, Dahl is also known for his tales of suspense and the macabre. From 1979 to 1988, he would host an ITV anthology series called “Tales of the Unexpected.” Most of the episodes were based off his own stories. (This wasn't even the first program of this type Dahl hosted, as he was involved with a similar show back in the sixties.) Not every episode of “Tales of the Unexpected” was macabre in nature but, as the title indicated, each one featured a twist ending of some sort. I first heard of the show when the DVD sets were advertised in Fangoria, which suggested to me it would make good October viewing. Further research showed that “The Landlady” is agreed upon as one of the creepiest episodes. 

A young man named Billy Weaver arrives in the city of Bath, looking for lodging for the night. While approaching a better known bed-and-breakfast, he is invited into another boardinghouse by a kindly old landlady. Her behavior is eccentric, as she keeps referring to Weaver by a different name and is overly familiar with him. Yet he also figures she's harmless enough. As the evening goes on, she references two previous tenants, whose names sound familiar to the lad but he can't quite place them. Around the time the landlady starts talking about her taxidermy hobby, her latest customer starts to become very worried.

"Tales of the Unexpected" was only a half hour show and "The Landlady" zips by even faster than that. The characters' interactions are breezy and fast-paced. The viewer figures out something sinister is happening immediately but "The Landlady," smartly, holds off on the taxidermy reveal. It's easy to put two and two together after that. Yet the climax is still fittingly gruesome, carried off with an amusing amount of dark wit. The setting is cozy, as is Dahl's fireside introduction, which pairs nicely with this very affable half-hour of horrible murder. The series opening, in which nude silhouettes dance over Tarot cards and revolvers, is the only element that sticks out. I know Dahl wrote "You Only Live Twice" yet that opening still feels a little too Bondian for this type of show. [7/10]

Forever Knight: Dead of Night

In its third season, "Forever Knight" continues to incorporate more supernatural elements. In "Dead of Night," an obnoxious real estate inspector is brutally killed inside a notorious haunted home. The building, known as Kestle House, is said to act as a conduit through which the dead can communicate with the living. After being inside it, all three of our regular detectives start to see ghosts. Nick is haunted by a woman he married in the 1600s who died after a botched attempt to turn her into a vampire. Natalie sees her grandmother, who she refused to see on her deathbed. Tracy Vetters is visited by a childhood friend who died in front of her. But is one of these spirits responsible for the murder?

My mom and I use to watch "Forever Knight" together in the morning on Sci-fi Channel, back when I was little. "Dead of Night" is one of the few episodes I remember seeing back then. Mostly, I recall the semi-graphic impalement that opens the episode and Tracy's ghostly vision. The lighting in the police station gets weird, a wind blows through the room, and chairs spin in the air. This proceeds a later scene, where the angry spirits, in their gowns and powdered wigs,  close-in on Nick. While never creepy, there's something comfortably spooky about the ghostly scenes. All three of our main leads get a solid arc here, making peace with their various ghosts. Even the police chief goes through a change, considering himself a hardened skeptic until he sees an old war buddy during the climax. The haunting element is so much fun, that the murder mystery feels totally secondary. (The killer's identity is fairly easy to guess.) Overall, a solid episode. I kind of hope "Forever Knight" does more explicitly paranormal episodes like this. [7/10]