Having given us the excellent Relic and the not too shabby but inessential Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A, Australian horror director Natalie Erika James is back behind the camera for her third film, the diet-fad chiller Saccharine.
How to watch Saccharine in Australia
Saccharine is screening exclusively in Australian cinemas from July 9, 2026.
2025
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Dir: Natalie Erika James
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What is Saccharine about?
Introverted medical student Hana struggles with her weight, an eating disorder, and a huge secret crush on gym junkie and fitness coach Alanya. Just when Hana seems perpetually stuck in a self-punishing binge and purge cycle, an old friend who has shed a ton of weight puts her onto a miracle weight loss drug that comes with two caveats: firstly, it’s hellaciously hard on the wallet; secondly, it’s made from human ashes.
However, being a medical student, Hana has relatively easy access to cadavers, and so she sets about home-brewing her own ashy diet pills. Which is gross enough, but it works – Hana starts dropping pounds.
Unfortunately, things take a turn for the supernatural when she starts getting haunted by her “donor”. Worse, Hana starts developing an unquenchable hunger, and you just know things are going to get much worse…
The cast of Saccharine
Midori Francis is Hana; Danielle Macdonald is her sympathetic friend Josie; Madeleine Madden is her crush, Alanya; Robert Taylor is Travis, her father; Showko Showfukutei is Kimie, her mother; and Annie Shapero is Melissa.
Saccharine trailer
Why we’re excited about Saccharine
Working as a kind of companion piece to body image/body horror masterpiece The Substance, Saccharine is a stunningly stylish, perceptive, and frequently disgusting look at body dysmorphia through the lens of horror, with Natalie Erika James using the current trend of online fitness influencers and “thinspiration” divas to tell a deeply unsettling story of loneliness, alienation, and self-loathing.