‘Saccharine’ Review: Stop Relying on That Body-ody-ody Horror [C] | Sundance
What do you get when you mix generational trauma and health wellness and sexual identity and ghosts and cadavers and diet culture and binge eating all in a blender? Well, just like if it were food, you’d probably get a shake that technically consists of individually tasty things, but fused together in this goop, it doesn’t entirely work.
Writer/director Natalie Erika James is certainly coming from a personal place with her latest horror film, the body horror Saccharine, a story of med student Hana (Midori Francis) who is uncomfortable with her body in more ways than one. She wants to lose weight and feel more attractive, but she binge eats. She has a crush on Alanya (Madeleine Madden), the sexy fit trainer at her gym, but she doesn’t know how to approach her. This looming dread about bodies goes beyond just her own as Hana’s parents are on the opposite sides of the spectrum – her mother is skinny and strict on diet, while her father is morbidly obese (think Brendan Fraser’s Charlie in The Whale). Last but certainly not least, the obese cadaver she’s studying in medical school – named “Big Bertha” – will soon haunt Hana in ways she can’t imagine.
That is because the main premise of Saccharine comes from Hana making a bizarre discovery. She is introduced to a gray pill that proves to be remarkably effective in making her lose weight instantly, and through her school labs, she learns that the pills consist of human ash. With Hana being a med student, having access to all the tools (and the one dead body) she needs, it’s insane to see the lengths she’s willing to go in order to feel more comfortable in her own skin.
The makeup work on Francis for Hana’s transformation is indeed impressive. From the prosthetics to how she would physically move, the film details a remarkable look at just how Hana would change if she were to lose so much weight so quickly. But soon enough, Hana finds herself being haunted by Bertha herself (who looks an awful lot like Baron Harkonnen). And even when she is now fit, Hana can’t seem to escape the urge to still eat.
Saccharine is a gross, distressing, nasty piece of work. James is certainly not afraid in fusing certain visuals together to create an unsettling experience. She would focus on gory surgical work on a cadaver and cut straight to close-ups of food being shoved directly into the mouth. Think of the shrimp eating scene in The Substance stretched to an hour and forty-five minutes. Not pleasant at all, maybe even triggering, but most effective.
The problem is the film never finds steady footing, and it’s because James has too many ideas and doesn’t fully dive into what she wants to do with them. This ranges from the small neat concepts to even the big dramatic talking points. For example, Hana learns quickly that she can only see Big Bertha via reflections. But it’s not ordinary reflections like a mirror, but through convex objects like the back of a spoon or a driveway mirror. Again, it’s neat, but does it mean anything? These questions go further into characterization. What does Bertha want, exactly? Over the course of the film, it seems like the answer to that question is to force Hana to keep eating. But what does that say about the obese woman when she was alive? And with Hana being the helpless daughter who watches her obese father eat his life away (which is based on James’ own childhood experience), does that help her see Bertha under a different light? It seems like time and time again, the film is indirectly saying something about fat people and fatphobia, but it’s missing the clarity.
The result is a film that often feels like it’s spinning in place, with an overstretched Act 2 that’s doing the same thing over and over. The repetition is completely intentional and understandable, as it’s clear that James wants to highlight the bad habits and self-perpetuating cycles, but too often, she detours away from the dramatic story to do a “scary sequence.” These sequences, though well shot by cinematographer Charlie Sarroff (who lensed both the Smile films and James’ debut Relic), offer diminishing returns over time, as they reveal no new information about plot or character (one particular sequence involving a surveillance camera seemed designed to reveal a twist, or some kind of turn, only to show what we already know). It’s not until Hana confides in her best friend Josie (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Danielle Macdonald) that Saccharine finally gets a little kooky, even getting a big laugh out of me. It’s a much-needed breather where even James is acknowledging just how absurd this premise is. Part of me wished more of the film had that energy.
In a similar vein as the indie horror film Slanted, which won the Grand Jury award last year at SXSW, Saccharine is a horror film where I was far more drawn into the dramatic story and the internal struggles of our protagonist. Both films have an Asian female lead, and both films tell stories about shame and how societal and personal pressures drive us to do self-destructive things. When Hana gets moments of genuine drama, where she gets upset at her parents, or when she wrestles with why she doesn’t feel any better mentally even after all the weight loss, the film works really well, beautifully actually. Francis gives an incredibly committed performance, and it’s clear that amidst all the torturous eating she must’ve gone through on set, she’s more than capable of delivering the emotional weight of Hana’s pain.
There is a much sharper, riper story hidden somewhere in the 115-minute runtime of Saccharine. Body image is a topic that seems to be getting more and more attention in film, but not many stories tell it through the lens of an eating disorder like James does here, and I admire that deeply. On a technical level, it’s the kind of unapologetic nasty filmmaking that I advocate for any day. But on a script level, it needs surgery in order to truly resonate. Midori Francis being haunted by Baron Harkonnen should’ve been more fun than this.
Grade: C
This review is from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival where Saccharine had its world premiere. Shudder will release the film in the U.S.
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