{"id":259309,"date":"2026-01-23T06:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259309\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T06:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:35:07","slug":"horror-film-has-hauntings-from-ghosts-and-eating-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259309\/","title":{"rendered":"Horror Film Has Hauntings From Ghosts and Eating Disorders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNatalie Erika James<\/a>\u2018 new film \u201cSaccharine<\/a>\u201d opens with a shot of a jelly donut getting devoured, and then the footage is spun in reverse, with the bloody-looking goo getting sucked back into the donut. It\u2019s an intentionally disorienting start to James\u2019 new horror film, which is an examination of diet culture.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy aim with the film was to sit the audience within the subjective experience of someone going through disordered eating and a disordered relationship to food,\u201d says writer-director James. \u201cIt really swings from that grotesqueness of feeling like it\u2019s too much but not enough, that endless kind of hunger. I wanted to convey that through really visceral shots of food. But it also swings to a glossy, dopamine-fueled space visually as well. Conveying both sides of that was really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSaccharine,\u201d which is opening on Thursday as part of Sundance\u2019s Midnight section and was acquired by<\/a> Independent Film Company and Shudder right before the festival, is a horror film that is frightening and provocative in equal measure. The plot concerns a med student named Hana (Midori Francis) who finds out that eating human ash is a shortcut to weight loss. Unfortunately, it also conjures the ghost of the person whose corpse was used for this diet hack.<\/p>\n

\n\tJames, whose previous films were the acclaimed 2020 family horror movie \u201cRelic\u201d and the 2024 \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby\u201d prequel \u201cApartment 7A,\u201d says the idea for \u201cSaccharine\u201d came from a personal place.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI grew up with parents who sat on opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of how they relate to their bodies and their relationship to food and eating,\u201d she says. \u201cOn one hand, my dad really struggled with food addiction. My mom, almost in response to that, was extremely strict with her diet and very health-conscious. In the midst of that, it feels like meal times are a minefield. I grew up with a lot of warped ideas about body image, as so many of us do. It\u2019s taken a long time to unpack those, and the idea came from that recovery process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile many artists might not have been able to conceptualize telling Hana\u2019s story through the lens of horror, James says it allows her a malleable canvas for heavy ideas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m drawn to the fear of something dark within ourselves, the shadow self,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s the common thread I\u2019ve found through a lot of my writing. It\u2019s a way to excavate the dark recesses of your heart, or the fears and anxieties that live there. There\u2019s such a freedom in the way you can use horror. It\u2019s very freeing to use surreal imagery and externalize what\u2019s internal through horror.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lush look of \u201cSaccharine,\u201d which James visualized alongside cinematographer Charlie Sarroff, drew upon unexpected sources.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had both \u2018candy\u2019 and \u2018grime\u2019 as thematic,\u201d she says. \u201cThose pops of color, that slightly neo-noir wash of neons and slightly-stylized lighting,\u00a0but also keeping the real darkness and grittiness as well. We were even drawing on older Wong Kar-wai films \u2014\u00a0just for inspiration, obviously not completely imitating them \u2014\u00a0but going for palettes that paint Hana\u2019s inner world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, James hopes that, along with delivering scares, \u201cSaccharine\u201d sparks thought and discussion about society\u2019s complex relationship with food and weight.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe most worthwhile thing in making a film is to hopefully convey an experience that makes people feel seen, see a part of themselves on screen, and make them feel less alone,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019ll be a lot of discussion about, particularly at the moment, the glamorization of the uber-thinness being glamorized. It\u2019s an important discussion to have, and just how much our diet culture and weight stigma permeates every facet of our culture. That\u2019s the real problem and needs to change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natalie Erika James\u2018 new film \u201cSaccharine\u201d opens with a shot of a jelly donut getting devoured, and then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270,128700,128701,21212],"class_list":["post-259309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-natalie-erika-james","tag-saccharine","tag-sundance-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}