Saccharine (2026) Review

Saccharine understands how exhausting modern beauty culture feels, where every conversation about food, appearance, self-improvement, and health carries a passive-aggressive judgment underneath it.

The horror in Saccharine simply comes from how recognisable all of it feels, but unfortunately, the movie eventually loses control of its own ideas a bit.

Plot

Hana, a lovelorn medical student, becomes terrorized by a sinister force after taking part in an obscure weight loss craze: eating human ashes.

Good Points

• Midori Francis delivers an excellent performance

• Body horror imagery is genuinely disturbing

• Strong atmosphere

• Captures modern wellness and body-image culture uncomfortably well

• Sound design makes everything feel extra disgusting

• Visual style is consistently striking

• Some skin-crawling horror moments

• Themes around shame and obsession hit hard

Bad Points

• The supernatural storyline weakens the film considerably

• Runtime feels way too long for the story being told

• Some emotional beats get repeated too often

• Themes become overcrowded and messy by the end

• Doesn’t really fully connect all of its ideas together

My Thoughts on Saccharine

Midori Francis

The best thing about Saccharine is easily Midori Francis, because she is really really good, where her character could have easily become a one-note “descent into madness” horror character, and to be honest, I was expecting it, but Francis helps to keep it all feeling painful to watch, even once the movie starts drifting into complete nightmare logic.

It feels like she’s trapped inside her own thoughts permanently and can’t switch the noise off anymore, with so much mental exhaustion and emotional vulnerability, which carries the movie through some of its messier stretches because even when the story becomes chaotic, you still feel Hana.

The film features some scenes that involve social interactions, and while I am not going to spoil much, these were some of the hardest to watch, because they’re incredibly accurate.

A lot of people are going to relate to Hana a lot, I think.

The movie understands how casually cruel wellness culture can feel

That’s where the horror works at its best in the film, because every conversation about appearance feels loaded, every “helpful” comment sounds slightly passive-aggressive, and even supportive people somehow still come across like they’re silently judging everything Hana eats, says, or looks like, where you also know exactly the type of person the film is talking about too - the “I just care about your health” crowd who somehow leave you emotionally destroyed after every interaction, the movie captures that pressure incredibly well.

And because it recognises how obsessive and performative modern beauty culture has become, that part of the horror isn’t just abstract metaphor, either.

The body horror

Respectfully, this movie is a bit vile, with scenes involving food, surgery tools, blood, chewing, slicing, body parts, and enough amplified squishing noises to make anyone physically recoil multiple times, and the sound design deserves partial blame for my suffering.

What really helps is that the gross-out imagery actually connects to the themes rather than existing purely for shock value - food never feels comforting here, where even normal meals are filmed like emotional breakdowns waiting to happen.

The visual style carries the weaker sections

Even when the pacing starts to drag a bit, the movie still looks fantastic, and Natalie Erika James clearly knows how to build atmosphere, because the lighting, neon colours, reflections, exaggerated food photography, and uncomfortable close-ups all work well together, with a constant sweaty, overfed-but-somehow-starving feeling hanging over the entire film, where everything looks unhealthy, and there’s also one dessert scene that genuinely made frosting feel threatening somehow, which is impressive.

The supernatural stuff is where the movie starts wobbling

At first, the haunting element worked OK I thought, because it felt connected to Hana’s mental state, and I thought the film was heading somewhere even more psychological.

But, once the supernatural element does become more central, the movie does start slipping into much sillier territory. with scenes where objects start flying around and suddenly the tone shifts from “slow emotional collapse” into “paranormal activity happening in somebody’s kitchen”.

I don’t think the issue here is that the supernatural horror element exists, but it’s just that the movie never fully figures out how all its ideas fit together emotionally - the body horror, eating disorders, addiction, shame, self-destruction, beauty standards, haunting, obsession, and guilt all start piling on top of each other until the actual story underneath starts to get buried, and the longer it goes on, the messier that balance becomes.

It did not need to be nearly two hours long

The middle section especially starts repeating itself emotionally - Hana spirals, somebody comments on appearance, disturbing imagery happens, repeat, and the movie keeps circling back to the exact same emotional beats, so that repetition hurts the pacing badly.

Especially because visually the film is already strong enough to communicate most of its themes without constantly restating them.

Saccharine will no doubt also be compared to a certain other body horror film that was popular not long ago, and it does have similiarities for sure, but it also has its own identity, especially emotionally, and you can definitely feel the difference in how tightly each film controls its escalation.

Final Verdict

Midori Francis is the best thing about this film, as she completely carries the emotional side, but I think the film does have some issues, but it also sticks with you too, has some really good scenes, and makes you think, which is always a positive thing in my book.

I liked it enough.

Trailer

Directed and written by Natalie Erika James

Cast includes - Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald, Madeleine Madden and Robert Taylor

Cinematography by Charlie Sarroff

Edited by Sean Lahiff

Music by Hannah Peel

Running time 113 minutes

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