150 Word Review: 'The Substance' (2024)
150 Word Review: 'The Substance' (2024)
Side effects may include geysers of blood
There’s a moment during The Substance's endless climax that made me sick to my stomach. It's so disgusting that I almost hurled—what a movie!
The substance is an anti-aging treatment that grows a young, gorgeous, fully-grown clone inside the person taking it. The birthing scene is beautifully gross. This clone must swap places with its host every seven days or else.
Director Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a brutal social satire-slash-body horror about an aging star who makes a deal with the devil—a mysterious pharmaceutical company. This critique of beauty standards has a surprisingly subversive POV: self-help is self-hate. Fargeat is a student of the masters: Cronenberg, Kubrick, et al.
Demi Moore plays a modern-day Norma Desmond. She gives her all in a show-stopping performance that is shockingly vulnerable, defiant, and, as previously mentioned, disgusting. Margaret Qualley is terrifying as Moore's glowing mini-me, immediately adored by men and their cameras.
More Body Horror: ‘Crimes of the Future’ (2022)
