Editorials
Battling for Control in the Face of Trauma in ‘Swallow’
Being a people-pleaser is exhausting. You are constantly worried about how someone is thinking or feeling; you try to do everything in your power to make sure they are happy, and you absolutely panic at the thought of someone being upset. It doesn’t matter what they are upset about; if they are upset, it feels like a failure. People-pleasing is often an effect of trauma, as you have been programmed to expect that you are the cause of someone’s unhappiness. No matter who you are talking to or who is in your life, this trauma follows you in every interaction. This is the life of Hunter in Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ Swallow.
In Swallow, Haley Bennet plays Hunter, a housewife who has married into an extremely wealthy family. With that wealth comes a certain set of expectations and standards, ranging from the length of her hair to the way she dresses to how she gets mental health services. She is a beautiful blonde puppet who is constantly reminded that without him and his money, she is nothing. She has no talents, she has no wealth, so she must comply with any and all orders or risk being turned onto the streets.
So, Hunter reads self-help books and does whatever she can to find solace in her new life. One of those coping mechanisms is swallowing items like marbles, thumbtacks, and batteries. The act of swallowing these objects is something that she is doing for herself; no one else is telling her to do it. It is a little treat, or so she thinks, something she can do without her husband, Richie (Austin Stowell), knowing or policing. This small act is one of rebellion, a grasp at control that is constantly slipping from her fingertips.
However, the illusion of control begins to vanish as she discovers she is pregnant. Of course, her pregnancy is celebrated by her husband as he exclaims “we are pregnant” and sees this as another thing he can make about himself, as well as his family. But, as seen in films like Rosemary’s Baby, pregnancy is often used as an exploitation of the female body. Women become a vessel for a man’s child, and hopefully heir. She is just a body to carry the precious cargo, something that is only protected and cared for out of necessity until the baby is born. In Rosemary’s Baby, the baby was the literal son of Satan. In Swallow, the baby is more symbolically the spawn of an evil family, but it still represents the hold his family has on Hunter’s life.
When Richie discovers Hunter’s appetite for the inedible, drastic measures must be taken. His child must be protected and he will do anything to ensure their safety. Don’t be mistaken, any help given to Hunter is only given to help the baby. She is medicated, given a caretaker—against her will— and reluctantly taken to therapy. To him, therapy is out of his control and a place where he can not dictate her every thought. It is a place for her to freely express herself and that terrifies him.
Yet through therapy, something much deeper and traumatic is revealed: Hunter was conceived when her mother was raped. She cheerily explains the story to her therapist, going into detail about who her father is, how he raped her mother, and how long he was in prison. While explaining this, she also continues to minimalize the effect such information has had on her life. Yet Hunter has offered an explanation for her actions and can be further understood; this was not just some event that happened and didn’t shape who she was. Her entire existence was marked by a single horrific act of violence, and she wants to avoid that fact as much as possible.
While her mother is not shown in the film, Hunter tries to quickly explain just how happy she was with her mother, stepdad, and new sisters. But through that sparkling veneer of a perfect family, Hunter slowly reveals how isolated she was from her family. Growing up, Hunter wanted nothing more than her mother to love her regardless of how she was conceived. She has spent her life trying to make people happy and make them love her despite everything else. She is a chronic people-pleaser due to her own neglect as a child, and that is reflected in her romantic relationships
But as Hunter peels back the layers of her trauma, she begins to recognize the cycles of abuse she has been stuck in her entire life. For so long she has focused on making others happy instead of herself. Swallowing was the one thing that made her happy. Now she seeks more than a clandestine marble; she seeks liberation.
Liberation for Hunter comes in the form of an abortion, done with the symbolic swallowing of a pill. Hunter has swallowed objects to exercise control, and this final swallowing scene is the ultimate act of bodily autonomy and rebellion. Abortion, in Swallow, is ultimately an empowering act, one that has freed Hunter. Her abortion also frees her from the cycle of abuse perpetuated by her own mother. While Hunter was conceived in rape, and her child was conceived presumably consensually, the child still represents a life where she cannot ever be herself. She is a child that represents guilt and regret, and she does not want another child to experience a life of resentment. Further, the baby, if they had been born, would have been a bargaining chip, a piece of capital used by her husband to dictate her actions. Hunter takes control over her own narrative through abortion, doing what her mother didn’t.
While this is not a film centered on the politics of abortion, it does show abortion as empowering and a way to exercise control over one’s body. Abortion is Hunter’s ultimate act of control, of removing herself from abuse. It marks her beginning to move towards a life where she does what makes her happy. Swallow is Hunter’s painful journey towards that realization, as well as a rumination on how difficult coming to such a realization can be. The female body is so often a battleground, and Hunter found a way to win her war.
Swallow is now available on VOD.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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