After her first two features, Relic and Apartment 7A, Natalie Erika James has cemented herself as a regular name to watch within the horror space. James is an Australian filmmaker, and Saccharine is not only her third feature film but also her second to have its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. James often centers her filmmaking in horror around the dread and atmosphere of environments rather than jump scares, making for some incredibly chilling sequences, but Saccharine combines both her strengths in the horror space alongside new elements of body horror and comedic filmmaking, which makes for arguably her most intriguing feature yet. 

Joshua Mbonu sat down with the writer/director to discuss nearly everything surrounding her latest feature and where she thinks Saccharine will differentiate itself from other horror films that have tackled similar themes.

Saccharine really focuses on an individual’s journey toward hopefully overcoming the shame underlying some of these things. There’s definitely a cultural pressure in the film, and messaging we absorb from diet culture, but this story is particularly centered on one person’s experience within that. Someone described it as ‘beauty horror,’ which makes sense because it’s so much about appearance — aging, thinness as an aspirational ideal, and how we present ourselves. All of it ties back to controlling women’s bodies, of course, but this film is much more specifically centered on the eating component of that rather than some of the other elements.

Follow our interviewees online:
Natalie Erika James IMDb, Instagram, Website

Follow our interview host online:
Joshua Mbonu 

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Credits:

  • Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
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