East Coast Premiere!

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream in Becca Kozak’s punk porn feminist body-horror Sugar Rot, a truly transgressive underground object that makes a sugary-sweet metaphorical treat out of female objectification. Punk rock stripper Candy (Chloë MacLeod) finds herself in a sticky situation when she’s sexually assaulted and impregnated by a deranged ice cream man (Tyson Storozinski) while working the counter of Sugar Rot ice cream parlor. Unfortunately, the only doctor in town is Dr. Herschell Gordon (Charles Lysne), a chauvinistic pro-life plastic surgeon who’s made Candy’s co-worker Barbie (Michela Ross) a trad-wife Bride of Frankenstein. Unable to abort the rapidly growing mutant fetus, Candy’s body begins sloughing off confectionery secretions, making her irresistible to loved ones and strangers alike in a movie that gives new meaning to the phrase “you are what you eat.”

Raunchy, raucous, and eager to set off a few trigger warnings, Sugar Rot makes literal the idea that women are only desired for their bodies, viewed and valued as consumable objects whose autonomy (never mind consent) is a mere afterthought to satiating other people’s sensorial pleasures. Utilizing grindhouse sensibilities and the conventions of exploitation cinema for hard-edged feminist provocation, Kozak takes the two worst vices a woman can have — sex and food — and combines them into a cold, gooey mess that leaves a residue. Think Baise-moi by way of Troma, The Fly as envisioned by Russ Meyer, or Titane on a candy-necklace budget.

Featuring a heavy rotation of punk rock tracks and goopy melt-movie effects sourced from the candy aisle, Sugar Rot oozes riot grrrl attitude and Betty Crocker frosting from every gaping orifice. MacLeod is absolutely gung-ho in a role that requires as much exhibitionism as it does getting down and dirty with Baskin-Robbins — to say nothing of how much ice cream gets lapped off her person by rabid hordes desperate to get a taste of Candy’s sweets. If you like your treats a little on the sour side and with a heaping dose of midnight movie madness, then Kozak’s scrappy feature debut is sure to satisfy your cravings. -Nicole Veneto

Brattle Passes Not Accepted