Films addressing body image issues have a longstanding history, exploring not only the physiological aspects but also the psychological challenges experienced by individuals with body dysmorphia. Thinner, The Skin I Live In, The Whale and the most recent horror hit The Substance, highlight the significant influence that social acceptability of physical appearance can exert. The fascination with body modification (or in this case, body mortification) has never been as icky as presented in Thinestra.

Penny is a slightly overweight young woman who devotes every single day exercising, dieting, and obsessing about food. Her refrigerator is filled with "Thin" shakes, while her walls are plastered with post-it notes urging her not to eat, exercise more, and featuring other so-called motivational messages. While employed as a retoucher for a photographer, her attention is drawn more to the pizza and desserts placed on the table beside her workstation than to the editing software she is required to use for enhancing images of various models. Penny feels isolated and defeated, struggling with a sense of unattractiveness in her own skin. She feels as though nothing is helping, and her self-esteem continues to decline, leading to an increasingly negative mindset.

Despite occasionally encountering her charming neighbor Josh, Penny continues to feel unworthy of his gentle, hesitant gestures. Attending holiday parties feels like a chore – how can you pull of a cheerful demeanor when the only thing on your mind is the cookie platters in the kitchen?

Then one evening after a session with the hired model Mariah after the crew have left the building, Penny reaches out with inquisitive interest. “What’s it like to be so perfect?” After a brief hesitation and the dry response “It’s amazing,” Mariah gives Penny exactly what she’s been searching for - unknown, unmarked and unapproved pharmaceuticals. Move over GLP-1’s! This is (or will be) THINestra!

Once asleep at home, Penny bolts awake from her continuous nightmares of being confined to a room constructed from donuts, forcing her to eat her way out. Although that would hardly be a terrifying environment in my opinion, she realizes now is the time to act…and she swallows the pills.

What follows is a similar pull from The Substance, as Penny’s evil doppelganger appears with a more devilish demeanor and an uncurable hunger. Is this a detached entity in the same fashion as Demi Moore’s counterpart, or is this twin within her? The horror launches itself into a frenzy driven by an unfathomable starvation for both food and flesh. Everyone in her path is expendable as this newly developed demon possesses Penny’s body with immense wickedness.

Just as in the Stephen King film, Thinner, the ravenous nature of the main character is unstoppable…the more she eats, the more weight she loses. Her curse is now all the fat she is losing. Literally. The actual fat seeps from her skin, accompanied by the ickiest sounds of oozy grossness. Imagine being covered in uncontained zit pus, soaking you from head to toe. It’s almost difficult to get through Thinestra without gagging. Which means (in my opinion), Thinestra delivers a queasy feeling that is both enjoyable and repulsive.