Sugar Rot (SOHOME) Gets Sour Rather Quickly

Title: Sugar Rot

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Becca Kozak

Writer: Becca Kozak

Runtime: 80 Minutes

Starring: Chloë MacLeod, Michela Ross, Drew Forster

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the Sohome Film Festival in 2025.

The commodification of women has existed in society for as long as people decided women were expendable in the name of truly insignificant things. Almost always it is for a man or men. Sugar Rot attempts to explore this through the avenue of sexual assault.

Candy (Chloë MacLeod) works at an ice cream store. Irritated by her self-important boss Barbie’s (Michela Ross) but desperate for work, she agrees to cover so Barbie has a day off. Unfortunately for Candy, during her shift an ice cream delivery man rapes her leaving her with a child. That isn’t all. In a bizarre twist, Candy’s body slowly transforms into ice cream. As people in her life discover the new Candy, they find that they cannot get enough of her. 

Rough-around-the-edges in nearly every respect, Sugar Rot is a dull body horror that handles its material dubiously at best.

Candy’s body becomes a source of horror and fascination as people around her start to literally consume her flesh. After her initial assault, Candy finds herself at the mercy of her insatiable coworkers, friends, and hookups with just one single taste. Mirroring the spectrum of emotions that follow an assault, Candy’s newfound problem with the people in her life parallels the experiences of survivors of assault. The isolation, the confusion, the rage. Candy’s story is interesting and important. Conceptually speaking, this is a kickass premise, but it unfortunately loses its steam as Sugar Rot flounders with its story. Lacking a purposeful narrative, Sugar Rot drags itself across the finish line without regard for developing its characters or story. The very ideas that make Sugar Rot interesting are abandoned in favor of tepid attempts at exploitation.

It also doesn’t seem like Sugar Rot understands what point it is trying to make. Sexual assault is treated with frivolity, amongst other things, and there’s not much within the narrative to go against this. Sure, this can be an easier avenue for writer/director Becca Kozak to explore the idea that bad men come in many shades, oftentimes hiding in seemingly good or well-intentioned guys. The execution feels more like a lack of focus on consistent character arcs. Instead, all the men of Sugar Rot use Candy like a vessel, almost comically laughing at her plight. It’s not the immediate characterization that is the issue but rather the one-note approach to interrogating men’s role in gendered violence. An easy-to-root-against villain has a place in storytelling, but the choices Sugar Rot takes in crafting its villains feel ill-advised at best and sickly unrealistic at worst. It’s further potentiated by the women’s reaction to sexual abuse too. Candy is met with condemnation from the women around her and is stripped of her own agency by the narrative at every turn. It’s upsetting, and maybe that’s the point. It doesn’t do much beyond stoking discomfort, which still feels like a hollow direction to take.

Stilted dialogue and bad acting make it hard to get behind the film’s sensibilities, regardless of how confused they are. Spelling out the film’s thesis one trauma dump after another, Sugar Rot revels in the unseriousness of its characters. In what could have been dreamed up by a particularly edgy middle schooler, Sugar Rot uses its characters as mouthpieces for various unpleasant ideologies as a contrast against Candy’s condition. It isn’t well-done enough to convert anyone thinking to the contrary and just annoys those in agreement. It doesn’t help that the cast is rough, failing to make even the simplest of scenes work.

Unfortunately, even the promise of some gnarly body horror falls short. Candy’s transformation into ice cream amounts to slathering Chloë MacLeod in melted vanilla ice cream and calling it a day. Aside from the physical transformation, Candy’s demeanor largely remains the same too. Despite the literal breakdown of her body, Candy’s shock and terror is limited to the same emotional depth one would embody when losing a pair of headphones or dripping ketchup on their shirt.  Failing to excite, terrify, or even gross out, the body horror of Sugar Rot ferments.

Body horror meets exploitation, Sugar Rot fails to meet the expectations of its sickly-sweet premise. Littered in forgettable exchanges of shallow and repetitive dialogue, stale jokes, and frustratingly glib portrayals of sexual violence, Sugar Rot limps across its candy-coated finish line. Kozak’s uncompromising vision, however ill-executed, is worthy of praise. Sugar Rot won’t be for everyone but those sensitive to its saccharine signal will embrace it when they discover it.

Overall Score? 3/10