SUGAR ROT (Fantastic Fest 2025) – Review by Nadine Whitney
The tagline for Becca Kozak’s debut indie Sugar Rot is “An exploitation film where a girl turns into sweets and everyone wants a taste!” And although I have to give Kozak kudos for working in almost every role in her microbudget film: director, editor, producer, writer, costumes, and incidental art, I do wish she’d worked out what she was trying to achieve with her bad taste DIY dirge.
Candy (Chloë MacLeod) is a punk working two jobs. In one she’s sometimes stripping at a live music venue but can’t get the night shift because she’s too fat, or her breasts aren’t big enough (both reasons are given) and unlike Star (Rebekah Scheffelmaire) she hasn’t developed bulimia to keep her skinny. The other job is as a server at Sugar Rot Ice Creamery run by Barbie (Michaela Ross) the Christian wife of the local doctor/plastic surgeon Dr. Herschell Gordon (a deliberate reference to Herschell Gordon Lewis “the godfather of gore” here acted by Charles Lysne). It’s at her second job where Candy is sexually assaulted by the creepy Ice Cream Man (Tyson Storozinski), becomes immediately pregnant, and picks up a savage sweet tooth. Believe it or not, this is a good day compared to what Candy has coming in the future.
Becca Kozak claims she pushes the boundaries of good taste with her punk aesthetic and extreme violence. And while John Waters is somewhere counting all his Hairspray profits, I found myself thinking “shock for shock’s sake” is hard to achieve in 2025 just as it’s difficult to take seriously any punk who has a painting of Adrian Edmundson as Vyvyan in The Young Ones as is displayed in Candy’s apartment. Kozak’s style of throwing everything at the wall and hoping some of it stands out is drearily passé and narratively clumsy. The practical effects mostly conceived by Kozak and sometimes implemented by her are the highlight of Sugar Rot.
Once Candy becomes pregnant her skin and all her excretions become irresistibly sweet. Also, Barbie decides she wants Candy’s foetus and will go to any lengths to get it. Similarly, Candy will go to any lengths to get an abortion including some DIY methods when Dr. Gordon refuses to perform one (although he does offer her free liposuction after having sex with her). Candy’s loser punk boyfriend, Sid (Drew Foster) finds he can’t help himself when it comes to taking large bites out of Candy’s body. She’s more addictive than his heroin. Candy turns to her fat-shaming mother (it’s important to note that other than the preternaturally fast pregnancy belly, Candy is in no way fat) who tells her she wishes she’d aborted Candy.
Perhaps we are supposed to be in on the joke when Candy sets up her boss for sexual assault when she informs her rapist that Barbie is a slut? Maybe having Candy sexually assaulted in jail is a great laugh too. Giggle at the amount of prosthetic genitalia! And when Candy is dying of “ice cream leprosy” the ludicrous and “exploitation” purpose of the movie is supposed to explain the gross spectacle, and it’s a prudish audience’s fault if they find it mediocre and unfunny.
If Kozak is playing Sugar Rot as satire, then the usual candidates are under the microscope. The Christian medical community who won’t perform a termination but will engage in experiments on making women perfect and sexually alluring. The refusal to allow women bodily autonomy because their bodies benefit others when they are controlled and easily consumed. Candy begins to drop sweets from her vagina wherever she goes. Not something the Brothers Grimm ever conceived.
Sugar Rot tries so very hard to provoke disgust or to provoke in general. But the provocation falls flat because it’s so profoundly meaningless. The film feels fifty years too late to be of note. A confused melange of sex, sugar, and stale satire with some own goal misogyny.
