Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis, 2019)

Finally - a horror film for adults! I got scared, I screamed, I covered my eyes. Haley Bennett stars (in an Oscar-worthy performance) as Hunter, a housewife beset by first vague and then not-so-vague dread in a upper-class marriage. She takes to swallowing increasingly dangerous inanimate objects (a marble, a tack, a long nail, etc.) to the exasperation of her husband and in-laws. The latter are painted a bit too broadly as Pure Evil. But Mirabella-Davis complicates the tension by displaying toxic masculinity as an ambient threat (especially in the creepy hug scene) rather than one that resides in a Bad Person. A pungent portrait of a woman going to potentially fatal extremes in order to self-actualize, Swallow is an always welcome reminder that patriarchy is a scarier monster than Freddie and Jason combined.
Grade: A-minus