Australian director Natalie Erika James demonstrates the power of movies as vessels for cultural commentary in this intoxicatingly creepy production
The body horror genre has been around for a long time, nibbling at the edges of the zeitgeist, but it seems to be having a moment, or about to. Every new title – recent examples including The Ugly Stepsister and Together – arrives in the shadow of Coralie Fargeat’s hideously impressive The Substance, a rare example of a sticky-icky flick that spectacularly defied the high/low art divide and even snagged a handful of Oscar nominations. Also having a moment (a terrifically long moment!) are Australian horror movies, with recent years delivering oodles of critically acclaimed titles – among them Talk to Me, Late Night With the Devil, Leviticus, You’ll Never Find Me, You Won’t Be Alone, Sissy, Relic, The Invisible Man, Bring Her Back and Beast of War.
Into that Venn diagram overlay between “body horror” and “Australian” comes Saccharine, the new film from writer-director Natalie Erika James, which takes a bold route into exploring eating disorders and body dysmorphia, demonstrating yet again the great power and malleability of horror movies as vessels for cultural commentary. James has a knack for visualising core themes: first in her excellent feature debut Relic, a horror film about dementia that illustrates time’s deteriorating forces in individual images: a mouldy fruit bowl, an overrun tennis court.
Continue reading...