A disturbing weight loss craze involving human ashes opens up a haunting world of hurt for a young woman in our exclusive trailer debut of Saccharine.
Saccharine opens in theaters on May 22, 2026 from Independent Film Company and Shudder.
From writer/director Natalie Erika James (Relic, Apartment 7A), the Australian supernatural body horror film follows lovelorn medical student Hana, who becomes terrorized by a sinister force after taking part in an obscure weight loss craze: eating human ashes.
Midori Francis (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$), and Madeleine Madden (“The Wheel of Time”) star.
Carver Films and Thrum Films produce, with financing by Screen Australia in conjunction with XYZ Films, IPR.VC, and Stan, in association with VicScreen.
Expect a haunting new twist on weight loss fads and body horror. I explain in my Sundance review, “James keeps the popular subgenre fresh with a new wrinkle; it’s not the body horror providing the scares but the increasingly angry specter haunting Hana. Hana finds herself at the mercy of a pesky poltergeist, only exacerbating her weight loss predicament. Big Bertha makes for a menacing presence that supports both the horror and exposes Hana’s deepest, darkest insecurities and fears.”
James said of her film in a statement, “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. 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.”
Saccharine has been rated R by the MPA for “disturbing content, grisly images, sexuality, drug use, graphic nudity, and language.”
