Eating Disorders Meet Horror as Saccharine Opens

Saccharine turns – Natalie Erika James turns disordered eating into horror in “Saccharine,” released in theaters by IFC and Shudder on Friday. Midori Francis stars as a medical student whose desperate weight-loss plan spirals into something haunting—while James and Francis argue

Natalie Erika James has always seen fear in the everyday.

Her first feature, “Relic,” followed the dread of watching a parent deteriorate through a battle with dementia. In her follow-up. “Apartment 7A. ” she stepped into the world of “Rosemary’s Baby” and returned to discussions around bodily autonomy. Now. with “Saccharine. ” released in theaters by Independent Film Company and Shudder on Friday. James brings the language of horror to disordered eating—using the genre’s intensity to tell a story that’s often kept private.

James said she wants to tackle the big questions she’s grappling with in her own life. and that the filmmaking process brings a “joy of discovering the answer.” She added that she aimed for honesty with this film specifically. because eating disorders. weight stigma. and everything connected to them can be “a touchy subject” for many people. To her, the work carried an obligation to present it “through my lens with my own experience.”.

At early screenings. Midori Francis said she’s seen “some tears.” She believes that’s because parts of the movie reflect viewers’ personal experiences with eating disorders. “As we know, food brings up a lot for people, issues of body image,” Francis said. She added that she’s had “a few of those very deep, deep conversations after.”.

Francis leads “Saccharine” as Hana. a young medical student who begins eating human ashes as a way of quickly losing weight—hoping. in the process. to win affection from gym crush Alanya. played by Madeleine Madden. The plan doesn’t stay contained. As the weight loss continues at a dangerous pace. Hana starts to turn into something else: she finds herself haunted by the person she’s consuming.

When Francis first read the script, she described an immediate sense of fit. “How perfect a vehicle to discuss a topic like this. ” she said. especially “the internal landscape of having an eating disorder or suffering from any kind of addiction or compulsion.” She called it “such a lonely feeling. ” and said horror captures that intensity “quite well.”.

Behind the camera, James shot the film over about two months, with Francis’ character present for every scene. Francis said the longest days of the Australia shoot could stretch to 17 hours, with 10-hour turnarounds. “That means by the time you’ve gotten driven home, you’re showering, you’re prepping,” she said. After a certain point, she explained, you can’t sleep the amount needed—but it was what the production required.

The demands didn’t stop at schedule. For the premise of “Saccharine,” the film includes numerous scenes where Hana eats a lot of food on camera. James said the production treated those moments “like it was a stunt. ” with preparation from the art department and Francis on exactly what was being eaten and whether there were alternatives for the candy bars. “With every scene. there’s always one take where she’s actually eating. ” James said. and the crew worked to be economical with takes—using spit buckets and other methods to get through the shots.

Francis called the process incredibly vulnerable. She said eating on camera is usually the opposite of what performers want. “Generally, we don’t want people looking at us when we’re eating, not looking closely,” she said. Eating disorders, she added, invert what eating can be in a “healthy” form—something social rather than isolating. “It really isolates you to the point where it makes you more and more alone.”.

That isolation became a central challenge for the film’s language. Francis said: eating is solitary. but cinema has to make that private moment visible. “Hana would probably not want anyone to see,” Francis said. “And obviously the actor has to show that. How do you have that private moment but film it?”.

James also leaned on a production choice that mirrors the world the story is trying to reach. She said a notable feature of “Saccharine” is that its cast is made up almost entirely of female actors. James explained that she’s always placed women at the center of her movies. and that this mattered for a story about the horror inside modern conversations around weight loss. eating disorders. and body image. “There’s a certain joy in writing characters who you share life experiences with,” she said. While she noted men face pressures too. she argued that the pressures on women are “quite different. ” and that the body-ideal messaging in media often projects desire onto women.

Francis tied her own experience to that focus. She said she’s found “more rewarding experiences” when she’s directed by a female director. pointing to communication style. depth. intimacy. and rigor. “As the actor, what I’m really doing is bringing to life somebody else’s imagination,” she said. She described it as “a precious gift”—being handed “the keys to their heart and their brain and their words”—and said she takes that seriously. Francis added that she feels joy in those connections when they involve women. but that similar ones can happen regardless of gender.

The film’s path to theaters has been its own kind of milestone. “Saccharine” picked up distribution right at the start of Sundance 2026, where it had its world premiere soon after. For James, it also marks a first. She said “Relic” had its theatrical release interrupted in 2020 by the COVID shutdown. while “Apartment 7A” would be a Paramount+ and VOD release. “Saccharine” is her first horror feature to get a “true theatrical roll-out.”.

James said horror is especially suited to the cinema experience, describing what happens when audiences sit together in the dark. “There’s something when you’re sitting in the audience where there’s a sense of surviving the terrors together. ” she said. adding that it heightens the thrill of being in the room. She traced her own love for the genre to going to the cinema with friends when she was 11—being “terrified out of my mind” and feeling the shared rush of a roller-coaster kind of fear.

For “Saccharine,” that shared darkness becomes part of the point: horror turns the loneliness of disordered eating into something audiences can face together, even when the subject itself is usually swallowed in silence.

Natalie Erika James Saccharine Midori Francis Independent Film Company Shudder horror film eating disorders weight stigma bodily autonomy Sundance 2026 Relic Apartment 7A Rosemary’s Baby