Title: Saccharine
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Natalie Erika James
Starring: Midori Francis, Anna Adams, Danielle Macdonald
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins

What It Is: A medical student (Midori Francis) actively struggling with weight problems finds a new way to lose weight: A diet pill that uses the ashes of the dead. Making her own from a corpse she’s studying, she begins to actively lose weight. There’s one problem with this. The soul of the corpse she’s consuming is pissed off.

What We Think: This film made my skin crawl, which is hard to do. Its premium body horror for better or for worse. Do not watch this movie with a full stomach. It will be agonizing torture. I’m surprised that this good of a horror movie was screened at Sundance, honestly. Felt like it belonged in Fantastic Fest. The film is a masterclass in discomforting the audience. Throughout the film, there’s this unnerving sense that horrible things are going to happen and this movie absolutely delivers. Every frame of this movie elicits some form of discomfort. For this reason, I personally did not find this film terribly enjoyable.

For context, this was the film where I discovered I had food poisoning. Every closeup of someone frantically binge eating made my stomach do somersaults like you wouldn’t imagine. I almost felt like throwing up quite a bit due to the imagery being so upsetting and grotesque. People were visibly twisting and turning in their seats with twisted expressions of agony and it had a few walkouts.

But don’t get me wrong. I think this movie is glorious for being able to do this.

Do you know how many horror movies don’t elicit any reaction out of me? I’m a seasoned horror connoisseur. Horror does not typically get to me the way this movie did. I fucking applaud it. Looking back on my theater experience, I daresay I champion this movie. What’s more was the script was actually very well written too! We were able to empathize with the main character and understand why she takes such a dark path. This is not merely a film that relies on shock factor and gore, the story and acting is there. The shots are well composed and beautiful. This movie gives me hope for the future of horror.

Saccharine made my stomach hurt but I love it for it.

Our Grade: A, Upon reflection, this movie was a deeply upsetting horror film but it earned its A on every front. A damn fine film I want to revisit when I don’t have food poisoning and am in a frame of mind where I can handle to grotesque imagery.