★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Nathan Hertz
Thinestra is a goopy, gloppy, dark-humored horror tale of attempted weight loss that, for some characters, means no small amount of blood loss.
Official synopsis: A miracle drug delivers the overnight weight loss you’ve always dreamed of. But will it turn you into a walking nightmare? It’s a sweltering Christmas in LA. Penny — plagued by body dysmorphia and cycles of binge eating — impulsively takes Thinestra, a mysterious Ozempic-like drug. That night, she violently expels masses of fat in a painful and grotesque purge. But her discarded flesh returns . . . and like the Hyde to Penny’s Jekyll, PENELOPE is born. As her ravenous dopplegänger wreaks bloody havoc, Penny struggles to regain control. Can she overcome her hunger before it’s too late?
Director Nathan Hertz’s body horror feature Thinestra is indeed a Jekyll and Hyde update for the miracle diet drug age. There’s oozing fat and torn flesh galore, with a focus on the extremes to which some people will go to try and achieve what advertising and the media pushes as “normal” body types.
Penny (played by twin sisters Michelle Macedo and Melissa Macedo) is a digital artist who touches up photos of fashion models. She has insecurities about her weight and despite her best efforts, has trouble losing until a model randomly gives her some of the titular drug, accompanied by a warning about side effects.
Anyone who has ever battled weight issues will find it easy to relate to Penny’s struggles, and the Macedo sisters do a marvelous job of portraying this character and her complexities. The darker side of Penny can be seen as a metaphor not only for eating issues, but for addiction overall — and when those urges come over this young lady, things get messy, with excellent practical effects work on display.
Screenwriter Avra Fox-Lerner delivers a smart screenplay with plenty of struggles for Penny to overcome, interesting characters, and a good deal of weirdness, wildness, and humor. Hertz paces the proceedings winningly, and crafts a gleefully gruesome horror film.
Review by Joseph Perry
Thinestra had its U.K. debut on June 20, 2025, at Raindance Film Festival.
