Spoonful of Sugar

There's a definite lack of thematic consistency. The film isn't sure what it wants to be - Is it a take on acid trips and its effects? Is it about bad parenting? Is it about cheating in relationships? Is it about childhood trauma? The writing tries to dip its paintbrush in all of these buckets, but it doesn't come together in a very satisfying way. But, to the film's credit, the performances (especially Morgan Saylor, who effortlessly swings between sweet, menacing, and sexy) largely cover up for the holes in the plot. The visual effects looked pretty bad in the first act, though when the LSD elements kicked in, I felt the director executed the hallucinatory bits nicely. At least a couple of scenes made me aghast, and that includes a wild raw-dogging bit as well as the gory climax. A twist is revealed almost right before the end credits, and though it made sense from a storytelling standpoint, the ramifications seemed low.

Considering the rather low ratings it got on here I wasn't expecting too much from this horror movie but I'm glad I gave it a shot because it was pleasant to follow. Horror movies will never please everybody, and even though I wouldn't class this one as hardcore horror, it was an entertaining movie. It's mild horror with a couple of bloody scenes, creepy for sure and that was mostly due to the performance of Morgan Saylor. She has good facial expressions to make it creepy, and of course her acting talent that was more than decent. The story was certainly not bad, just simple but effective, and easy to follow.

Spoonful of Sugar (2022) is a film that was recently added to Shudder. The storyline follows a young lady who takes medication to manage a condition that causes her to see things and lose her mind. Her parents abandoned her and she has been in and out of foster homes and currently lives with a creep who can't wait until she turns 18. Meanwhile, she studies at a college and is writing a thesis on allergies and that they are as much in your mind as reality. To make ends meet she picks up a job babysitting an eccentric young man who has extreme allergies, doesn't talk and is abusive towards his parents. As she babysits the young man he makes tremendous progress, the mom gets jealous and the young lady starts falling in love with the dad. This causes a tidal wave of events at the house that is bound to cause an explosive conclusion.

This movie is directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan (Fixation) and stars Morgan Saylor (White Girl), Kat Foster (Jean-Claude Van Johnson), Myko Olivier (Glee), Danilo Crovetti (Hunters) and Laura Coover (Agent Carter).

This movie is fantastic. The storyline is very clever with entertaining twists and turns. The main character is perfectly delivered, awkward, unpredictable and fascinating all at the same time. Her hallucinations are very well presented. The cinematography in this movie is very good and helped create intensity that is felt throughout the movie. The adopted dad is crazy creepy and made me feel icky every scene he is in. Honestly, the acting and dialogue of every character feels authentic and this had a 'May' feel to it in a lot of ways. There's a rabbit 🐇 scene that's wild and very well done. The storyline for this keeps you glued to the screen until the very end; and when the conclusion arrives, you're hit by a truck...then backed over. I adored how this film concludes.

Overall, this is a magnificent addition to the horror genre that's absolutely worth your time. I would score this an 8-8.5/10 and strongly recommend it.

This is an interesting film with some great performances that ultimately doesn't quite work. It's as if there are a few too many ideas going on and something got left on the cutting room floor. It also doesn't help that characters aren't clearly drawn, should you be rooting for them or hating them ? The twist was a nice touch but in the end it doesn't save the film. Someone dropped the ball, either the writer, director or both, but the film doesn't quite gel into something I would watch again. For the performances though, the strangeness of it all and the fact that it uses a rare case of a male as an object of desire, makes this worth a one time watch.

This is impressive.

It's The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, but way more weird and creepy.

I wasn't ready for this. This is going to sit with me for a while.

The Chapstick at the end was an interesting detail.

I watched this on AMC+/Shudder. It has a listed release date of March 2, 2023, but it dropped early. On the 21st or before. Probably after the Winter Film Awards International Film Festival in New York on Sunday the 19th.

I have dug Kat Foster in a bunch of TV shows, 'Til Death (2006-2008), Your Family Or Mine (2015) and more.

This is one of at least 9 Mommy Horror movie's we're getting this year. Also Baby Ruby, Birth/Rebirth, Blood, House/Wife, Huesera: The Bone Woman, M3GAN, There's Something Wrong With the Children and They Wait in the Dark. There's probably more I've forgotten. I think the moral of the stories is, don't have kids.