There’s A Creepy New Diet Trend In Shudder’s Saccharine

Shudder, teaming up with Independent Film Company, has just dropped the trailer for the upcoming diet-based horror Saccharine.

Relic director Natalie Erika James’s film stars Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald and Madeleine Madden, focusing on the latest weight loss and body image craze involving human ashes.

“Saccharine is a love letter – to anyone who has grown up wishing their body was different, to anyone who has felt imprisoned by self-destructive impulses, to my family and the hidden pain we carried, and to myself,” the director shared in a statement. “Shame can often drive self-destruction, but bringing compassion, acceptance and light to your darkness, is the only way its power dissolves.”

“As Hana learns in the most brutal way, healing and recovery are not places we arrive at, but an ongoing path,” James adds.

Saccharine will combine some minor body horror, social/feminist commentary and supernatural elements in his discussion of how far society pushes women to achieve the “perfect body”, even if that involves exploiting the bodily remains of others.

Carver Films and Thrum Films share production responsibilities; meanwhile, financing is handled by Screen Australia.

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James’s other credits include Apartment 7A, serving as a prequel to Roman Polanski’s influential 1968 horror, Rosemary’s Baby, itself an adaptation of Ira Levin’s 1967 novel of the same title. Polanski’s film took Levin’s subject matter of bodily autonomy, women’s mental and emotional health, and Satanic Panic to the big screen. James’s take on the tale involved an original story of a dancer who has recently experienced a stifling injury, with a Broadway producer and elderly couple taking her state as a perfect opportunity for their secret, sinister plan.

Her debut, Relic, a slow-burner of atmosphere and tension, focused on an elderly woman suffering from dementia, prompting her daughter and grandchild to move in, only to discover their relative’s illness is the last of their worries now.

Saccharine hits US cinemas on May 22nd.

About the Author

Ros Tibbs

Editor

Ros is a film and lit graduate writing news and reviews at The People's Magazine. She also writes long-form film theory, film history, analytical or curated recommendations pieces on other platforms.

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