Saccharine

by Mike McGranaghan

The mark of a good body-horror movie is that it makes you ask yourself, “What kind of twisted mind would even think of this?” In the case of Saccharine, that twisted mind belongs to writer/director Natalie Erika James, maker of Relic and Apartment 7A. This time, she tackles the issue of weight loss - our obsession with it and the occasionally bizarre things people do to thin down. A theme that relatable guarantees the most gruesome moments will leave you aghast.

Med student Hana (Midori Francis) wants to drop a few pounds. She signs up for a 12-week exercise program at the gym because she’s attracted to trainer Alanya (Madeleine Madden). Then another option comes along. An old friend tells her about these amazing new pills called “the Gray” that make the excess weight fall off. Hana tries it, finding that she can eat whatever she wants without gaining an ounce. The Gray turns out to be capsules of human ash. Since she and fellow student Josie (Danielle Macdonald) are working with a morbidly obese corpse, stealing parts of the body to make her own pills seems cost-efficient.

Swallowing human ash is actually the least gross thing in Saccharine. The corpse, whom the women dub Bertha, isn’t too keen on her body being burned and eaten. Her ghost (or spirit, or whatever) begins tormenting Hana. This is the point where the movie’s demented creativity springs into overdrive. Hana can only see Bertha in convex objects like spoons or metal bowls. Without going into specifics, there’s a binge-eating component to the dead woman’s vengeance, and that leads to several extremely uncomfortable encounters. Initial scenes of internal organs being cut from Bertha’s body morph into Hana having an almost orgiastic relationship with food.

What James shows us is frequently shocking. The act of eating, which we typically associate with pleasure, becomes grotesque onscreen. Events grow increasingly repellant as they build to a finale where Hana does something certain to leave the squeamish reaching for a container to vomit into. As far as doing what body-horror is meant to do, the film scores. You can’t help imagining yourself going through the stuff Hana experiences. Not everyone appreciates the subgenre, but if you do, here’s a darn fine example of it.

Francis delivers a strong performance in the central role. Getting the audience to empathize with a character who steals body parts from a corpse and eats them is probably not the easiest task an actor could tackle. She manages to do just that by conveying the psychology behind Hana’s obsession with weight so that her desperate measures are understandable, if not advisable.

Tension in Saccharine wanes during a few scenes that are unnecessarily long, and I’m not sure I entirely understand what’s happening during the climactic showdown between Hana and Bertha. Otherwise, the movie is equal parts disturbing and mesmerizing. You know - the very things body-horror movies are meant to be.