A medical student creates a sinister diet drug to fight her own eating disorders in this witty, gory body-horror shocker.
This is the kind of movie I do not want to hear a man's opinion on unless it is glowingly positive.
Saccharine 2025
“A young woman resorts to desperate measures to achieve her dream body, only to discover that perfection comes at a terrifying cost. Japanese-Australian filmmaker Natalie Erika James returns to the themes of female identity and family trauma she explored in her standout 2020 debut Relic, but this time goes for all-out body horror rather than creeping dread. The result is an effective, crowd-pleasing blend of gory shocks and shrewd commentary on the insidious dangers of cultural conditioning.
Lead actor Midori Francis gives a strong, sympathetic performance as Hana, a woman constantly on the brink. Clever make-up, costuming and prosthetics join with subtle shifts in body language, lighting and camera angles to show Hana’s vulnerability and self-loathing slowly turning to confidence and pride and then, all too quickly, fear, desperation and sickly despair.
It all builds to a frenzied, nightmarish climax of greed, desire and full-tilt excess that takes a sharp-toothed bite out of society’s toxic obsession with women’s bodies, and should leave horror audiences hungry for more.”
- Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily