Thinestra, 2025.
Directed by Nathan Hertz.
Starring Melissa Macedo, Michelle Macedo, Mary Beth Barone, Annie Ngosi Ilonzeh, and Brian Huskey.
SYNOPSIS:
A young woman takes a slimming aid, and the weight she loses returns as a destructive doppelganger.
At a time when everyone seems to be judged on how they look rather than how they perform, wouldn’t it be great to have a pill that allowed you to drop the pounds without any effort? The “too good to be true” line of miracle dietary aids has been reeled out for decades now and shows no sign of abating.
Taking some cues from last year’s high-concept body horror film The Substance, this engaging new feature examines society’s obsession with image and beauty, particularly female appearances. We follow Penny (Michelle Macedo), someone who has a poor relationship with food and her body. She tries everything she can to shed more pounds – fitness classes, exercise training, and highly controlled diets – but never gets the results she wants.
Her job doesn’t help much either, as she works as an image retoucher at a photo studio, effortlessly editing out parts deemed superfluous or unwanted from projects. One day, during a hot Los Angeles Christmas, a model condescendingly recommends a bag of diet pills. After a particularly depressing Christmas party, which leads to some binge-eating, Penny remembers the pills she carried home from work. Full of remorse and self-loathing for gorging on cookies, she fatefully takes the pills, labelled ‘Thinestra’.
The result is indeed miraculous, and full-on body-horror gross-out. Weight is shed rapidly and horribly, and the discarded mass becomes Penny’s malevolent double, Penelope (played with conviction by Michelle’s real-life twin, Melissa Macedo). As the horror-social satire continues, Penelope gains more and more control over Penny. Gruesome, bloody murders are committed, and everything looks completely demented. There is, of course, a pitch-black humour to all of this, but the actual truth behind the colourful bedlam is revealing.
The shame and self-recrimination that many people feel about diet and exercise are skilfully presented in this artfully made feature. The Macedo sisters are both excellent in their respective roles as Penny and Penelope. The intense freak-outs and chaotic bloodbaths that follow the Thinestra drug are entertainingly played.
Perhaps the most successful part of the piece, however, is that it ties into the internal horror of this obsession to look the part or what you feel is expected. This cruelty that many inflict upon their own self-image is the true nightmare, and this film does it justice by treating it as a topic worthy of comment.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
