Brandon West
Reproductive rights are human rights, says Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s 2019 thriller film Swallow. This easily-overlooked English language film uses body horror to explore the myriad fetters with which modern American society aims to constrain the female body. The film follows a young woman, protagonist Hunter (Haley Bennett), who finds herself encircled on all sides. Since Hunter is the product of rape, her “right-wing, religious right” mother views her as a burden. Meanwhile, her wealthy husband views her as a baby incubator, a means to carry on his family name. Thus isolated, Hunter seeks bodily autonomy in one of the few avenues open to her: consumption. And so, she develops an acute case of pica, consuming such materials as a marble, a thumb tack, and a battery. Yet, even in this arena, Hunter’s control proves inadequate, subject to male supervision. When Hunter’s pica causes complications with her pregnancy, her husband scolds her and hires another man to supervise her at home.
In this image, Hunter examines the cut a thumbtack has left on her tongue. She is discovering the power and dangers of consumption.
When Hunter relapses, however, her husband’s family tries to have her institutionalized until after she has given birth. Hunter escapes, though, and confronts her biological father (her mother’s rapist), who is contrite and assures her she is not like him and is not a source of shame. Rather than go back to her husband, Hunter gets abortifacients and aborts in a mall restroom.
Swallow’s depiction of abortion treats reproductive rights as human rights not only because it connects these rights to issues of consumption, of consent, and of marriage, but also because it portrays Hunter’s abortion as the single most independent action of her life to that point: as a triumph. We should note how Swallow treats Hunter’s marriage as a constraint, a violation of her autonomy. Shortly after her husband threatens her so she will “come back here with [his] kid,” Hunter meets the man who raped her mother. The thematic connection between the controlling husband using his wife as a means to an end (the ego of legacy) and the rapist who wanted to “feel special” and “powerful” is clear. And more than that, it is poignant.
Here, Swallow shows how modern American society tries at every turn to curtail, command, and commandeer the female body. Furthermore, it portrays each of these (predominantly male) actions as unethical. Hunter’s husband is selfish, inconsiderate, and an incipient abuser. Notice not only that he dismisses Hunter’s agency and impending motherhood in declaring her fetus his child, but notice, also, how he thereby declares ownership over the fetus. Before this child has even entered the world, Hunter’s husband has broadcast his power over them. Certainly, a daughter would receive from him as much bodily respect as he gives Hunter. And a son would grow up to be the husband’s carbon copy: egotistical and prone to treating women as property, mere means to an end.
And we must acknowledge that Hunter entered the world as a means to an end. For her biological father, she was the byproduct of his immoral desire to stroke his own fragile ego. For her mother, she appears but a moral obligation, a millstone long weighing down the mother’s neck. And yet, Swallow’s ending rejects this view, not only of Hunter but of women generally. As I have observed, when her husband demands she bring his (unborn) child back to him, he treats Hunter as an incubator. In declining to bear her husband’s seed any longer, however, Hunter refuses to be a means for someone else’s end. Instead, she declares (albeit in her understated way) her status as an agent.
Here, Hunter seeks comfort under her marital bed, and her caretaker, Luay, follows her.
Swallow‘s ending is decidedly upbeat for such an otherwise despondent film. Hunter’s new found independence seems to challenge her husband’s assertion in his impotent tirade that she is “not good at anything.” Certainly, Hunter seems contemplative to a degree her mother fails to achieve. Whereas Hunter’s mother appears to have resentfully accepted Hunter as a burden, Hunter seeks to reconcile herself to her impending motherhood. Namely, she addresses her parental issues before allowing herself to become a parent. And one need only wonder to what degree her unhappy parentage caused Hunter to decline to become a parent herself, at least at this time. Indeed, we see this desire when Hunter seeks refuge under her bed shortly before fleeing her marital home. Under the bed, she finds herself in a womb-like space that comforts her, giving her, perhaps, the motherly embrace she has long sought after. That this space is only “womb-like” is clear, though, as Hunter’s minder joins her under the bed and assures her she is safe there. Even there, Hunter feels out of place.
Throughout this review, I have held that Swallow presents a refreshingly feminist take on reproductive rights in the thriller. It stands out even against the much more famous Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) in which the eponymous Rosemary’s Catholic beliefs preclude abortion as an option. While Swallow has received far less attention than Rosemary’s Baby (in its various iterations), Swallow deserves more sustained attention as a feminist thriller film that not only addresses a variety of feminist issues in American society today but that furthermore links these issues to the overarching (and exigent) topic of reproductive rights. And while Swallow takes place in New York state, its narrative has much broader appeal.
In one of the movie’s final shots, Hunter smiles, apparently at peace with her decision to abort.
Swallow links body horror to female bodily autonomy in a way that extends across international borders. After all, these issues are hardly unique to the film’s American setting. And thus, while I have taken pains to stress that setting, I also believe that some of the attention Swallow deserves could well come from elsewhere, that the film could well resonate with audiences worldwide. Swallow enters into numerous discussions, not the least of which (as I alluded earlier by mentioning Rosemary’s Baby) is the ubiquitous fear accompanying pregnancy and impending motherhood.
With the battle for reproductive rights now on a backfoot in the United States, Swallow’s narrative is more pressing now than ever. While it may not go down easy, Swallow is a movie well worth imbibing.
For more articles on horror and the politics of reproduction and abortion, see:
James Wan’s The Conjuring and Abortion
Red Christmas: A Disturbing New Holiday Horror Classic
Feminine or Feminist? Abortion, Motherhood, and the Traditional Final Girl
And our podcast, The Pro-Sex Slasher: Talking Black Christmas (1974)
Brandon West is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Sam Houston State University, where he teaches introductory and advanced film courses. West’s research primarily examines American horror films released after 1970. He is the author of two monographs on horror films, At the Edge of Existence with McFarland and Revulsion with Vernon Press. His current projects include a monograph on folklore in rape-revenge films.
