Saccharine - Film Review - Fremantle Shipping News

Gayle and her partner watched the screener for Saccharine at Luna Leederville on Monday 30 June, with a spooky full moon waiting for them outside. They left the theatre feeling curiously hungry.

*WARNING* This film centres on themes concerning eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

It’s a very fun time for horror buffs. These last few months alone have seen a slew of excellent horror films, both from experienced and young emerging directors. Recent blockbusters such as Exit 8, The Backrooms, and Obsession have knocked Star Wars off the top shelf for at least a significant while and left us in the happy predicament of trying to keep up with them all. Ahhhh.

Enter Saccharine. Cleverly named after the artificial sweetener which is associated with negative press over potential side effects.

Saccharine is a homegrown body horror which screened at the Sundance film festival, from Australian director Natalie Erika James and filmed in Melbourne.

Hana (played by Midori Francis) grapples with a myriad of problems consuming her. Demanding studies at medical school. An overbearing “perfect” mother. A mysteriously absent father the entire family is concerned about. That cute gym instructor she wants to impress. A growing dependency on food for comfort. And that pesky corpulent ghost reflected in every convex surface of her apartment.

Hana wants to break out of her shell and catch the eye of her gym instructor, Alanya (Madeleine Madden). Her toxic relationship with food precludes that. On a fateful night, an old friend introduces her to an illicit underground diet pill called ‘grey’ that she insists transformed her. After learning about the price tag, our savvy protagonist decides to make her own and tesits ingredients. Turns out its made of human ash.

Why let a small detail like that curb your appetite?

Hana obtains her own. And invokes a relentless haunting from the ash’s owner, who drives her to binge even as she wastes away.

This film is a fun ride, even though it does try to fit too many thematic morsels onto the same plate. The run time is needlessly long. It would have benefited from paring down some of the points it strives to make and instead focus on sharply delivering a select few.

There are several things that are done extremely well for creating an unsettling mood. Saccharine features ample slow, extreme close ups with audible eating sounds and a creepy breathwork audio track. Oozing, glossy colour and materiality along with smatterings of quick snappy shots and close ups are reminiscent of The Substance, but this film is very much its own beast, with some satisfying hints of East Asian horror. The audience also got quite a few laughs out of it through some timely, well placed bits of relief from the tension.