Somewhat, 3.5 out of 10. It's a quiet psychological thriller with a few hard-to-watch scenes and no jump scares.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
3.5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Medium
You will wince at the next marble you see, and it takes a day or so to pass.
DOG
Dog: fine
no dog, though a lamb is slaughtered early.
Ruling: It is a slow domestic drama with a few squirmy scenes, so bring a strong stomach.
Swallow runs ninety-five minutes and has no monster. The danger is a very nice house, a husband who works in business and a woman who starts eating things from around the house.
The premise, briefly
A newly pregnant housewife named Hunter, stuck in a lavish house with an inattentive husband, begins swallowing marbles, thumbtacks and other things you aren't meant to swallow.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Hunter gets away from Richie's family, meets the father she has never known, and gets closure. She then takes pills at a food court and ends the pregnancy in a public restroom.
The scene you're dreading
Around the middle, Hunter overhears Richie on the phone with her psychiatrist and panics. She swallows a miniature screwdriver, and Luay finds her choking and calls 9-1-1. Surgery removes it.
The dog
There is no dog in Swallow. A lamb is slaughtered early on, if that matters to you.
It is a slow, uncomfortable thriller about control, with a few gross-out scenes and no jump scares, and it is easier to watch once you know Hunter does not go back to Richie.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A very large kitchen and one marble
Hunter Conrad, from a working-class family, has married Richie Conrad, who comes from a wealthy one and will soon run his father's company in Manhattan. She now lives in their enormous upstate New York house, and she is lonely and ignored, while Richie is distant and thoughtless. At a dinner celebrating their pregnancy, she starts to tell a story and is cut off when her father-in-law drifts away and asks Richie about work. One day, home alone, she feels an urge to eat a marble. She finds the sensation thrilling and moves on to other things around the house, including thumbtacks, small metal figurines and a battery.
At a routine ultrasound, the technician spots something odd in Hunter's abdomen. She goes straight into emergency surgery to have a collection of objects removed from her intestine, and she is diagnosed with pica, a disorder that makes people eat things that aren't food. Richie reacts with anger and contempt instead of sympathy. His parents, Katherine and Michael, send her to a psychiatrist in the city. In therapy Hunter says she wants to stop for Richie's sake and that she likes how the objects feel in her mouth. Richie also hires a family friend named Luay to watch her while he is at work. Hunter, who feels smothered, is cold to him, and Luay tells her that her illness is the product of a privileged life. She keeps hiding and swallowing things, and she is upset at Richie's birthday party to find he has told his friends. In therapy she finally says her biological father did not raise her, and she has never met him. His name is William Irwin. Her mother conceived her after being raped by him, and he went to prison for it.
A phone call and a miniature screwdriver
One afternoon Hunter overhears Richie on the phone with her psychiatrist and realizes that he has paid the doctor to report on her sessions. She panics and swallows a miniature screwdriver. This is the scene people dread, and it happens around the middle of the story: Luay finds her choking and calls 9-1-1, and she goes into surgery to have it taken out. Afterward Michael and Katherine decide to commit her to a psychiatric hospital until the baby is born, seven months away, and they warn that Richie will divorce her if she says no. Luay has come to like Hunter by now. Before they can leave, he lets her run into the woods and makes it look as if she escaped.
Dirt from outside at a motel
Hunter hitchhikes to a motel and phones Richie, who begs her to come home. She tells him she rushed into the marriage and the pregnancy to please him. When she says she won't return, he threatens and insults her. She smashes her phone, then passes the night in front of the television, eating soil she took from outside. In the morning she hitchhikes to the house of her biological father, William. He is having a birthday party with family and friends, and he and his wife, Lucy, mistake her for the mother of one of their daughter's friends. Hunter tells William privately who she is. In an emotional conversation he says he is ashamed of raping her mother. She asks if he is ashamed of her, and if she takes after him, and he answers no to each.
The ending, explained
Hunter has found some closure with William. At the motel she had already refused to go back to Richie. She goes to a clinic and is given medication to end the pregnancy. She swallows the pills over lunch in a food court, and the abortion happens in a public restroom.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog, though a lamb is slaughtered early.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Swallow scary?
Somewhat. Swallow is a 3.5 out of 10: a slow psychological thriller with a few squirm-inducing scenes of swallowing and surgery, and no jump scares.
How does Swallow end?
Hunter leaves Richie's family and meets her biological father, William, who tells her he is ashamed of what he did to her mother. She then takes pills to end the pregnancy and goes through the abortion in a public restroom.
Does the dog die in Swallow?
There is no dog in Swallow. A lamb is slaughtered early in the movie.
Is there a post-credits scene in Swallow?
No. Swallow has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Why does Hunter swallow things in Swallow?
She is diagnosed with pica, a disorder that makes people eat things that aren't food. In Swallow she describes liking the feel of the objects in her mouth, and she keeps going as her husband and his parents take more control of her life.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Swallow is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can know how Swallow ends without watching anyone eat a battery. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror before you see it.
