'Sweetness' Review: Thrills in a Candy-Coated Psychotic Shell

In the camp of Misery and Hard Candy comes Emma Higgins' not-so-sugary thriller Sweetness. The music video director introduces audiences to a Gen Z Annie Wilkes, swapping out an injured actor for a drug-addict popstar. It's a suburban tale of bullied outcasts coming of age through parasocial delusion—when fantasy becomes a nightmare. Higgins' script is barbed and acerbic despite its tweeny-bopper cosmetics, lulling audiences into a false sense of young adult terror. Sweetness is noisy and nasty, fitting right alongside last year's idol-centric Smile2 and Trap.